fix(e2e): stabilize gateway, Hermes, and LangChain Deep Agents Code

[prekshivyas]

Outcome

Stabilizes the three product-relevant failures observed in main E2E run 34634519219: stopped gateways are no longer reported as connected, Hermes resume safely reclaims its owned dashboard/API ports after sandbox deletion, and the LangChain Deep Agents Code runtime user can write conversation state that other non-root UIDs cannot access. The changes preserve strict ownership checks and do not weaken the Deep Agents Code JSON-envelope assertion.

Reason

The failures have three independent root causes:

• The lifecycle fixture stopped a legacy process but did not consistently stop and restore the installer-owned OpenShell user service.
• Hermes resume treated its owned direct forwards as reusable before sandbox deletion had released their listeners, causing EADDRINUSE on port 8643.
• The Deep Agents Code managed image switched to the sandbox runtime user while /sandbox/.deepagents/conversation_history remained root-owned and mode 0700, forcing Deep Agents Code into temporary offload storage and producing an invalid login-shell JSON result.

Related issues

Relates to #11526.

Changes

• Include the reviewed gateway user-service lifecycle fix from fix(e2e): stop the OpenShell gateway user service #11526, including service provenance validation, manager-failure propagation, idempotent stop/restart handling, and Linux lifecycle coverage.
• Defer only an exactly owned Hermes direct-forward port, then perform a bounded post-deletion rebind that retries EADDRINUSE while preserving every other bind error. Fixed Hermes forwards remain loopback-only even when dashboard forwarding binds to all host interfaces on WSL or through an explicit remote-dashboard setting.
• Keep Deep Agents Code conversation history owned by sandbox:sandbox with mode 0700. Under Darwin compatibility, keep the shared parent sticky with mode 1777 so another UID cannot rename the history directory. The managed-image workflows run standard and Darwin-compatible images and verify exact ownership and mode; denial of cross-UID read, write, file-delete, and directory-rename operations; and the intentional shared-configuration allowance.

Verification

• NODE_OPTIONS=--max-old-space-size=8192 npm run validate:pr — passed for commit 315a404e9f18c9692cf32f78ef0bb4c02ebd2f9f against upstream main commit 4eaa7c1c222acd38868cdfe8703884b3e99ab10e.
• Focused Hermes ownership, reservation, finalization, managed-image workflow, source-shape, and growth-guardrail tests — 168/168 passed.
• Deep Agents Code image contract tests — 121 applicable tests passed; one unrelated pre-existing dependency-lock test was excluded after exceeding its 30-second test timeout.
• npm run build:cli and npm --prefix nemoclaw run build — passed.
• npm run checks:repository — passed (19 selected repository checks).
• Source-shape scanner — 33/33 tests passed, and npm run source-shape:check reported no new source-shape tests.
• bash -n, ShellCheck, Hadolint, formatting, git diff --check, and the repository secret scan — passed.
• Brev exact Deep Agents Code base-image reproduction — reproduced root:sandbox:700 and the non-writable-state warning before the change; the rebuilt image reports sandbox:sandbox:700 and writable=yes after the change.
• The diff contains no secrets, API keys, or credentials.

Review notes

This PR touches sensitive installer, managed-image, onboarding, and network-forward paths. Please focus review on user-service provenance and failure propagation, exact direct-forward ownership matching, the bounded post-delete port retry, runtime ownership of Deep Agents Code state, and the final-image cross-UID denial probes. The synthetic Brev inference stub was sufficient to verify the image startup and writable-state boundary but not a complete Deep Agents Code chat turn. Hosted managed-image CI will execute the standard and Darwin-compatible final-image probes after publication; hosted E2E remains the final end-to-end confirmation.

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Signed-off-by: Prekshi Vyas prekshiv@nvidia.com

Summary by CodeRabbit

• Bug Fixes
  • Improved dashboard and Hermes API port handling when ports are already owned by the sandbox.
  • Added safer retries for temporary port conflicts while preserving immediate reporting of other errors.
  • Improved dashboard and loopback forwarding ownership checks across supported platforms.
  • Prevented unnecessary service launches when existing listeners or readiness conditions indicate they cannot succeed.
  • Improved sandbox resume behavior for Hermes agents when compatible endpoint checks are unavailable.
• Reliability
  • Added validation for conversation-history permissions across Linux and Darwin-compatible managed images.

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📥 Commits

Reviewing files that changed from the base of the PR and between 7d16fad and f3d78ff.

📒 Files selected for processing (4)

• src/lib/onboard.ts
• src/lib/onboard/dashboard.ts
• src/lib/onboard/sandbox-create/orchestration.ts
• test/onboarding/onboard-finalization-dashboard-forward.test.ts

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📝 Walkthrough

Walkthrough

The changes reuse sandbox-owned forwarded dashboard and Hermes ports during onboarding, add bounded rebinding after forward deletion, and validate Deep Agents Code conversation-history permissions across Linux and Darwin-compatible managed images.

Suggested reviewers: cv, senthilr-nv, dongni-yang

Changes

Owned-forward port reuse

Layer / File(s)	Summary
Forward ownership helper wiring src/lib/onboard.ts, src/lib/onboard/dashboard.ts, src/lib/onboard/sandbox-create/orchestration.ts	Ownership checks now distinguish dashboard and loopback targets and pass through sandbox creation orchestration. Providerless APF validation also uses the resolved agent and suppresses stored credential discovery.
Dashboard port reuse and rebinding src/lib/onboard/dashboard-port.ts, src/lib/onboard/dashboard-port.test.ts	Dashboard allocation reuses confirmed owned forwards, defers their ports, and retries rebinding after deletion only for EADDRINUSE.
Hermes API port reuse and recreation src/lib/onboard/hermes-api-port.ts, src/lib/onboard/hermes-api-port.test.ts	Hermes allocation reuses confirmed owned forwards and directly rebinds the selected port after recreation. Dashboard and Hermes reservations are rebound concurrently.
Onboarding validation coverage test/onboarding/onboard-finalization-dashboard-forward.test.ts, test/e2e/live/onboard-resume.test.ts	Tests cover gateway endpoint matching, legacy listeners, bind races, readiness failures, resume behavior, and Hermes-specific unavailable-route handling.

Conversation-history directory permissions

Layer / File(s)	Summary
Runtime directory ownership and validation agents/langchain-deepagents-code/Dockerfile, scripts/checks/verify-dcode-conversation-history-image.sh	The image creates a sandbox-owned 0700 conversation-history directory. The verifier checks metadata, unauthorized operations, filesystem state, and Darwin-compatible access.
Managed-image validation wiring .github/workflows/managed-images.yaml, test/inference/managed/*	Staging QA builds and validates a Darwin compatibility image. Linux, Darwin, and PR image workflows invoke conversation-history validation.

Priority: ⬇️ Low

Estimated code review effort: 3 (Moderate) | ~25 minutes

Change: Bug fix

Sequence Diagram(s)

sequenceDiagram
  participant Onboarding as SandboxCreateOrchestrationRuntime
  participant Dashboard as OnboardDashboardHelpers
  participant Forward as Forward service
  participant Reservation as Port reservation scope
  Onboarding->>Dashboard: check dashboard or loopback ownership
  Dashboard->>Forward: resolve target and verify ownership
  Forward-->>Dashboard: owned or foreign result
  Onboarding->>Reservation: defer owned port
  Onboarding->>Forward: delete owned forward
  Reservation->>Reservation: retry reservation after EADDRINUSE
  Reservation-->>Onboarding: rebound port reservation

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Merge Risk: ⚪ Minimal · up to f3d78

The updated ownership validation, port rebinding, and image permission checks do not leave a concrete merge-blocking risk.

🚥 Pre-merge checks | ✅ 4 | ❌ 1

❌ Failed checks (1 warning)

Check name	Status	Explanation	Resolution
Docstring Coverage	⚠️ Warning	Docstring coverage is 11.63% which is insufficient. The required threshold is 80.00%. Docstring coverage is scoped to functions touched by this diff. Analyzed 43 functions across 19 files.	Write docstrings for the functions missing them to satisfy the coverage threshold.

✅ Passed checks (4 passed)

Check name	Status	Explanation
Description Check	✅ Passed	Check skipped - CodeRabbit’s high-level summary is enabled.
Title check	✅ Passed	The title clearly summarizes the pull request's three stabilization areas: gateway behavior, Hermes forwarding, and LangChain Deep Agents Code. It is concise and specific.
Linked Issues check	✅ Passed	Check skipped because no linked issues were found for this pull request.
Out of Scope Changes check	✅ Passed	Check skipped because no linked issues were found for this pull request.

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Code Coverage Overview

Languages: TypeScript

TypeScript / code-coverage/plugin

The overall line coverage in commit f3d78ff in the fix/e2e-hermes-dcode... branch remains at 96%, unchanged from commit 48894b5 in the main branch.

TypeScript / code-coverage/cli

The overall line coverage in commit f3d78ff in the fix/e2e-hermes-dcode... branch remains at 83%, unchanged from commit 49fea6a in the main branch.

Show a line coverage summary of the most impacted files.

File	main 49fea6a	fix/e2e-hermes-dcode... f3d78ff	+/-
src/lib/actions...ard-recovery.ts	94%	89%	-5%
src/lib/adapter...ward-service.ts	84%	82%	-2%
src/lib/actions...ess-recovery.ts	81%	80%	-1%
src/lib/actions...ard-recovery.ts	88%	87%	-1%
src/lib/onboard.ts	55%	55%	0%
src/lib/onboard...eway-service.ts	82%	82%	0%
src/lib/onboard...host-runtime.ts	87%	88%	+1%
src/lib/onboard...uild-context.ts	74%	75%	+1%
src/lib/onboard/dashboard.ts	73%	81%	+8%
src/lib/onboard...oard-forward.ts	92%	100%	+8%

---

_{Updated September 12, 2026 00:54 UTC}

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Actionable comments posted: 2

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Inline comments:
In `@agents/langchain-deepagents-code/Dockerfile`:
- Around line 375-376: Update the Darwin compatibility permission-handling
commands so /sandbox/.deepagents/conversation_history is excluded from recursive
permission changes or restored afterward to sandbox:sandbox ownership and mode
0700. Preserve the existing verification using stat to ensure conversation
history remains private when NEMOCLAW_DARWIN_VM_COMPAT=1.

In `@test/agents/deepagents/langchain-deepagents-code-image.test.ts`:
- Around line 219-222: Update the test around the Dockerfile ownership
assertions to probe the built image’s effective contract: verify
/sandbox/.deepagents/conversation_history is sandbox:sandbox:700 and
inaccessible to another UID for read, write, and delete operations. Test the
NEMOCLAW_DARWIN_VM_COMPAT=1 image separately and preserve its intentionally
relaxed permissions. If retaining source-text assertions, add the approved
source-shape-contract: security annotation and corresponding budget entry.

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📥 Commits

Reviewing files that changed from the base of the PR and between b5828b4 and 7df4f10.

📒 Files selected for processing (16)

• agents/langchain-deepagents-code/Dockerfile
• scripts/install.sh
• src/lib/onboard.ts
• src/lib/onboard/dashboard-port.test.ts
• src/lib/onboard/dashboard-port.ts
• src/lib/onboard/dashboard.ts
• src/lib/onboard/hermes-api-port.test.ts
• src/lib/onboard/hermes-api-port.ts
• src/lib/onboard/sandbox-create/orchestration.ts
• test/agents/deepagents/langchain-deepagents-code-image.test.ts
• test/e2e/fixtures/phases/lifecycle.ts
• test/e2e/support/e2e-phase-lifecycle.test.ts
• test/e2e/support/lifecycle-user-service.test.ts
• test/install/install-openshell-gateway-service.test.ts
• test/install/install-openshell-macos-upgrade.test.ts
• test/onboarding/onboard-finalization-dashboard-forward.test.ts

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Request changes before merge.

Blocking findings:

• Three code-local discussions need resolution: two current CodeRabbit threads and one attached to this review.

Focused verification: 46/46 exact-bound review packets, targeted port/image/lifecycle suites, and candidate-forming CI completed; product scope, DCO, commit verification, and the remaining security categories passed.

[jyaunches]

Maintainer shepherd follow-up for exact head b3810d6:

• Implemented the three actionable review findings: Darwin compatibility now restores private conversation-history ownership and mode, the managed-image build asserts and probes cross-UID read/write/delete denial, and Hermes forward ownership remains loopback-only while dashboard ports retain WSL/remote-bind semantics.
• Focused validation: 147 tests passed across the dashboard-forward, Deep Agents image, and growth-guardrail suites.
• Repository validation: npm run checks:repository passed; npm run source-shape:check passed; CLI type-check, CLI build, plugin build, and npm run validate:pr passed.
• Commit signature is verified and DCO-valid.
• Local Advisor review was attempted with azure/openai/gpt-5.6-terra, but the OpenShell specialist sandbox failed readiness with sandbox is not ready and SSH exit 255 during architecture-standard-work. The authorized alternative review of the full candidate diff completed with existing independent CodeRabbit and maintainer feedback incorporated; no additional actionable findings were identified.
• Residual hosted evidence: exact-head CI is running, including the managed-image permission regression that exercises the Linux build probe. Selected E2E will be dispatched deterministically after the applicable gates are ready.