fix(jetbrains): scope config warnings to the workspace directory

[kirillk]

Issue

Fixes #

Context

JetBrains sessions were showing a stray "Configuration warnings" banner reading /Users/<you>: Automatic indexing is disabled in home and filesystem root directories..., attributed to $HOME instead of the real project. Clicking "Try again" restarted the whole CLI backend and re-showed the identical banner.

Root cause: KiloBackendAppService.fetchWarnings() called /config/warnings (a directory-scoped endpoint) from an app-scoped service (Service.Level.APP, one instance per IDE) with no directory. The CLI fell back to process.cwd(), and KiloBackendCliManager spawned kilo serve without setting a working directory, so it inherited the IDE JVM's cwd — $HOME on macOS. The CLI then built a real instance for $HOME, which trips the "no automatic indexing in home/root" safeguard and returns it as a config warning. Because warnings lived on KiloAppStateDto, that warning painted onto every session regardless of its actual directory, and genuine project-local .kilo/kilo.json warnings were never fetched for the right directory in the first place.

Implementation

Two independent fixes:

1. CLI working directory — KiloBackendCliManager now sets ProcessBuilder.directory(...) to a plugin-owned empty directory (<IDE system path>/kilo/cwd, via the new workDir() helper) before spawning kilo serve. Falls back to inheriting the IDE's cwd if that directory can't be created, so this can never break startup. This means any endpoint that omits directory in the future lands somewhere harmless instead of $HOME.

2. Config warnings become workspace-scoped — moved warnings off KiloAppStateDto and onto KiloWorkspaceStateDto/KiloWorkspaceState.Ready, fetched per-directory via api.configWarnings(directory = directory) in KiloBackendWorkspace.load(), right after providers/agents/commands/skills finish loading. The fetch is sequential and outside the parallel launch block, and failures are swallowed (return empty list) so a slow or erroring warnings call can never fail the workspace load. A global.config.updated SSE handler refreshes just the warnings in place (via Ready.copy(warnings = ...)) without reloading the rest of the workspace data.

   SessionController now reads workspace.warnings instead of app.warnings for the banner, telemetry, and retry decision. The retry-with-warnings path now calls workspace.reload() instead of app.retryAsync() — restarting the backend never fixed a warning (it's derived from on-disk config, not connection state), so the old behavior just repeated the same banner after a full CLI restart.

   KiloBackendAppService.retry() no longer escalates to restartConnection("warnings remained after refresh") for a Ready app state, since warnings are no longer part of AppData at all.

Net effect: the false $HOME banner disappears, and real project-local config warnings (e.g. malformed .kilo/kilo.json) will now actually surface, scoped to the right directory — which they never did before this change, since warnings were always fetched for whatever directory kilo serve happened to inherit.

All changes are confined to packages/kilo-jetbrains/; no CLI (packages/opencode/, packages/core/) or SDK changes.

Screenshots / Video

N/A — no visual changes to the banner itself, only which directory's warnings it shows and whether "Try again" restarts the backend.

How to Test

Manual/local verification

• ./gradlew typecheck — passes (also runs automatically via the pre-push hook).
• ./gradlew test — full suite passes. One WorktreeSessionEditorManagerTest failure appeared in one full run; confirmed pre-existing/flaky by re-running it in isolation (passed) and re-running the full suite (passed clean) — unrelated to any file touched in this change.
• Ran the new/updated tests directly:
  • ./gradlew :backend:test --tests "ai.kilocode.backend.cli.KiloBackendCliManagerEnvTest" --tests "ai.kilocode.backend.app.KiloBackendAppServiceTest" --tests "ai.kilocode.backend.workspace.KiloBackendWorkspaceTest" --tests "ai.kilocode.backend.rpc.KiloWorkspaceDtoMapperTest" — pass
  • ./gradlew :frontend:test --tests "ai.kilocode.client.session.controller.AppWatchingTest" --tests "ai.kilocode.client.session.controller.ConnectionDelayTest" --tests "ai.kilocode.client.session.ui.ConnectionPanelTest" — pass

Reviewer test steps

1. ./gradlew --no-configuration-cache runIdeSplitMode from packages/kilo-jetbrains/, open a project that is not $HOME.
2. Confirm no "Configuration warnings" banner appears, and kilo.log shows a CLI cwd: <IDE system path>/kilo/cwd line.
3. Introduce a syntax error in that project's .kilo/kilo.json and save — confirm the banner now appears, scoped to that file's path.
4. Click "Try again" — confirm the log shows a workspace reload, not a backend restart (no retry: restarted connection line).
5. Fix the file and save — confirm the banner clears via the global.config.updated SSE path.

Blocked checks and substitute verification

• Did not run the manual reviewer test steps above in a live IDE sandbox (agent has no GUI); substitute verification was the automated test suite covering the same code paths (workspace warnings loading into Ready, SSE refresh in place, failed/empty warnings not blocking Ready, retry reloading the workspace instead of restarting the app) plus ./gradlew typecheck/test.

Checklist

• Issue linked above, or exception explained
• Tests/verification described
• Screenshots/video included for visual changes, or marked N/A
• Changeset considered for user-facing changes — @kilocode/kilo-jetbrains is "private": true and excluded from the changesets flow; no changeset needed.
• I personally reviewed the diff and can explain the changes, including any AI-assisted work.

Get in Touch

[kilo-code-bot]

Code Review Summary

Status: No Issues Found | Recommendation: Merge

Files Reviewed (4 files)

• packages/kilo-jetbrains/backend/src/main/kotlin/ai/kilocode/backend/cli/KiloBackendCliManager.kt
• packages/kilo-jetbrains/backend/src/main/kotlin/ai/kilocode/backend/workspace/KiloBackendWorkspace.kt
• packages/kilo-jetbrains/backend/src/test/kotlin/ai/kilocode/backend/cli/KiloBackendCliManagerEnvTest.kt
• packages/kilo-jetbrains/backend/src/test/kotlin/ai/kilocode/backend/workspace/KiloBackendWorkspaceTest.kt

Previous Review Summary (commit 102761b)

Current summary above is authoritative. Previous snapshots are kept for context only.

Previous review (commit 102761b)

Status: 3 Issues Found | Recommendation: Address before merge

Overview

Severity	Count
CRITICAL	0
WARNING	2
SUGGESTION	1

Issue Details (click to expand)

WARNING

File	Line	Issue
packages/kilo-jetbrains/backend/src/main/kotlin/ai/kilocode/backend/workspace/KiloBackendWorkspace.kt	227	refreshWarnings() runs inside events.collect and can stall the global SSE bus
packages/kilo-jetbrains/backend/src/main/kotlin/ai/kilocode/backend/workspace/KiloBackendWorkspace.kt	154	Hung /config/warnings can block workspace Ready indefinitely

SUGGESTION

File	Line	Issue
packages/kilo-jetbrains/backend/src/main/kotlin/ai/kilocode/backend/cli/KiloBackendCliManager.kt	626	mkdirs() returns false if the directory already exists, falling back to inherited cwd

Files Reviewed (18 files)

• packages/kilo-jetbrains/backend/src/main/kotlin/ai/kilocode/backend/app/KiloAppState.kt - 0 issues
• packages/kilo-jetbrains/backend/src/main/kotlin/ai/kilocode/backend/app/KiloBackendAppService.kt - 0 issues
• packages/kilo-jetbrains/backend/src/main/kotlin/ai/kilocode/backend/cli/KiloBackendCliManager.kt - 1 issue
• packages/kilo-jetbrains/backend/src/main/kotlin/ai/kilocode/backend/rpc/KiloAppRpcApiImpl.kt - 0 issues
• packages/kilo-jetbrains/backend/src/main/kotlin/ai/kilocode/backend/rpc/KiloWorkspaceDtoMapper.kt - 0 issues
• packages/kilo-jetbrains/backend/src/main/kotlin/ai/kilocode/backend/rpc/KiloWorkspaceRpcApiImpl.kt - 0 issues
• packages/kilo-jetbrains/backend/src/main/kotlin/ai/kilocode/backend/workspace/KiloBackendWorkspace.kt - 2 issues
• packages/kilo-jetbrains/backend/src/main/kotlin/ai/kilocode/backend/workspace/KiloWorkspaceState.kt - 0 issues
• packages/kilo-jetbrains/backend/src/test/kotlin/ai/kilocode/backend/app/KiloBackendAppServiceTest.kt - 0 issues
• packages/kilo-jetbrains/backend/src/test/kotlin/ai/kilocode/backend/cli/KiloBackendCliManagerEnvTest.kt - 0 issues
• packages/kilo-jetbrains/backend/src/test/kotlin/ai/kilocode/backend/rpc/KiloWorkspaceDtoMapperTest.kt - 0 issues
• packages/kilo-jetbrains/backend/src/test/kotlin/ai/kilocode/backend/workspace/KiloBackendWorkspaceTest.kt - 0 issues
• packages/kilo-jetbrains/frontend/src/main/kotlin/ai/kilocode/client/session/controller/SessionController.kt - 0 issues
• packages/kilo-jetbrains/frontend/src/test/kotlin/ai/kilocode/client/session/controller/AppWatchingTest.kt - 0 issues
• packages/kilo-jetbrains/frontend/src/test/kotlin/ai/kilocode/client/session/controller/ConnectionDelayTest.kt - 0 issues
• packages/kilo-jetbrains/frontend/src/test/kotlin/ai/kilocode/client/session/controller/SessionControllerTestBase.kt - 0 issues
• packages/kilo-jetbrains/shared/src/main/kotlin/ai/kilocode/rpc/dto/KiloAppStateDto.kt - 0 issues
• packages/kilo-jetbrains/shared/src/main/kotlin/ai/kilocode/rpc/dto/KiloWorkspaceStateDto.kt - 0 issues

Fix these issues in Kilo Cloud

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