fix(status): keep gateway selection out of JSON stdout

[ericksoa]

Summary

Fixes the status --json regression introduced by #7113, where OpenShell's ANSI gateway-selection confirmation bypassed the CLI's stdout guard and made Deep Agents target discovery fail to parse the response. Human-readable status output remains unchanged while JSON stdout is again machine-parseable.

Changes

• Capture openshell gateway select stdout instead of letting the child process write directly to file descriptor 1.
• Replay captured output through an injected stdio adapter that writes to stderr, keeping the human confirmation visible without contaminating structured stdout or coupling the action to process streams.
• Add unit coverage for the subprocess stdio contract and integration coverage for the exact ANSI gateway-selection message.
• Remove the temporary test(e2e): tolerate gateway banner in fresh re-onboard #7233 consumer-side banner sanitizer so the Deep Agents fresh re-onboard check again parses the raw JSON document and detects any producer regression.

Type of Change

• Code change (feature, bug fix, or refactor)
• Code change with doc updates
• Doc only (prose changes, no code sample modifications)
• Doc only (includes code sample changes)

Quality Gates

• Tests added or updated for changed behavior
• Existing tests cover changed behavior — justification:
• Tests not applicable — justification:
• Docs updated for user-facing behavior changes
• Docs not applicable — justification: this restores the existing documented structured status --json contract; stdout routing is an internal implementation detail.
• Sensitive paths changed (security, policy, credentials, preflight, onboarding, inference, runner, sandbox, or messaging)
• Sensitive-path review completed or maintainer-approved waiver recorded — reviewer/approval link/justification: pending independent review; no waiver claimed.
• Non-success, skipped, or missing CI check accepted by maintainer — check name, approval link, and follow-up issue:

Verification

• PR description includes the DCO sign-off declaration and every commit appears as Verified in GitHub
• Normal pre-commit, commit-msg, and pre-push hooks passed, or npm run check:diff passed when hooks were skipped or unavailable
• Targeted behavior tests pass for the current change set, or tests are marked not applicable above — gateway selection unit tests (6 passed); sandbox status JSON integration tests (18 passed); npm run typecheck:cli, bash -n, and shellcheck passed.
• Exact-head GitHub CI and protected E2E evidence passed — ordinary CI, controller, and child suite.
• Applicable broad gate passed — npm test for broad runtime/test-harness changes; npm run check for repo-wide validation/coverage changes — not applicable to this narrow stdout-routing regression; focused unit/integration tests, CLI typecheck, and normal hooks passed.
• Quality Gates section completed with required justifications or waivers — pending independent sensitive-path review.
• No secrets, API keys, or credentials committed
• npm run docs builds without warnings (doc changes only)
• Doc pages follow the style guide (doc changes only)
• New doc pages include SPDX header and frontmatter (new pages only)

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Signed-off-by: Aaron Erickson aerickson@nvidia.com

Summary by CodeRabbit

• Bug Fixes

  • Gateway selection output is now displayed correctly without contaminating structured JSON status responses.
  • sandbox status --json now consistently returns machine-readable output, even when gateway status messages are generated.

• Tests

  • Expanded coverage for gateway selection output handling and command execution behavior.
  • Updated end-to-end validation to parse status JSON reliably.

[coderabbitai]

📝 Walkthrough

Walkthrough

selectSandboxOwningGateway now pipes command stdout and forwards it through a stderr adapter. Tests cover execution options, output forwarding, and exclusion of gateway messages from sandbox status JSON.

Changes

Gateway output handling

Layer / File(s)	Summary
Forward gateway selection output src/lib/adapters/stdio.ts, src/lib/actions/sandbox/gateway-select.ts, src/lib/actions/sandbox/gateway-select.test.ts	Gateway selection pipes stdout, writes returned output through the stderr adapter, and tests the configured execution options and forwarding behavior.
Filter gateway messages from JSON status test/cli/sandbox-status-json.test.ts, test/e2e/.../04-deepagents-code-fresh-reonboard.sh	CLI and end-to-end checks verify that gateway-selection text is excluded from structured JSON parsing.

Estimated code review effort: 2 (Simple) | ~10 minutes

Possibly related PRs

• NVIDIA/NemoClaw#7113: Modifies selectSandboxOwningGateway, its runOpenshell invocation, and related tests.
• NVIDIA/NemoClaw#7233: Modifies the same end-to-end status parsing flow for the gateway-selection banner.

Suggested labels: area: sandbox, integration: dcode

Suggested reviewers: cv, jyaunches

🚥 Pre-merge checks | ✅ 5

✅ Passed checks (5 passed)

Check name	Status	Explanation
Docstring Coverage	✅ Passed	No functions found in the changed files to evaluate docstring coverage. Skipping docstring coverage check.
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.
Description Check	✅ Passed	Check skipped - CodeRabbit’s high-level summary is enabled.
Title check	✅ Passed	The title clearly summarizes the main change: preventing gateway-selection output from polluting JSON stdout.

✨ Finishing Touches

📝 Generate docstrings

• Create stacked PR
• Commit on current branch

🧪 Generate unit tests (beta)

• Create PR with unit tests
• Commit unit tests in branch fix/status-json-gateway-select-output/ae

---

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[github-code-quality]

Code Coverage Overview

Languages: TypeScript

TypeScript / code-coverage/plugin

The overall coverage in commit 64cd07a in the fix/status-json-gate... branch remains at 96%, unchanged from commit 821aa06 in the main branch.

TypeScript / code-coverage/cli

The overall coverage in commit 64cd07a in the fix/status-json-gate... branch remains at 80%, unchanged from commit 821aa06 in the main branch.

Show a code coverage summary of the most impacted files.

File	main 821aa06	fix/status-json-gate... 64cd07a	+/-
src/lib/inferen...lama/process.ts	100%	50%	-50%
src/lib/inferen...er-lifecycle.ts	71%	65%	-6%
src/lib/actions...teway-select.ts	100%	100%	0%
src/lib/adapters/stdio.ts	0%	0%	0%
src/lib/sandbox...rce-identity.ts	91%	91%	0%

---

_{Updated July 20, 2026 14:08 UTC}

[coderabbitai]

🧹 Nitpick comments (1)

src/lib/actions/sandbox/gateway-select.ts (1)

23-26: 📐 Maintainability & Code Quality | 🔵 Trivial | ⚡ Quick win

Keep stdout routing behind an adapter or injected writer.

selectSandboxOwningGateway now calls process.stdout.write directly from an action. Route this through a stdout adapter or injected writer instead, so the action remains decoupled from the host boundary and tests do not need to spy on a global.

As per path instructions, process/stdout routing belongs in src/lib/adapters/** so actions can remain testable.

🤖 Prompt for AI Agents

Verify each finding against current code. Fix only still-valid issues, skip the
rest with a brief reason, keep changes minimal, and validate.

In `@src/lib/actions/sandbox/gateway-select.ts` around lines 23 - 26, Update
selectSandboxOwningGateway to remove its direct process.stdout.write call and
route stdout through an adapter or injected writer defined under the adapters
boundary. Preserve writing result.stdout while keeping process/stdout access out
of the action and allowing tests to provide a controlled writer.

Source: Path instructions

🤖 Prompt for all review comments with AI agents

Verify each finding against current code. Fix only still-valid issues, skip the
rest with a brief reason, keep changes minimal, and validate.

Nitpick comments:
In `@src/lib/actions/sandbox/gateway-select.ts`:
- Around line 23-26: Update selectSandboxOwningGateway to remove its direct
process.stdout.write call and route stdout through an adapter or injected writer
defined under the adapters boundary. Preserve writing result.stdout while
keeping process/stdout access out of the action and allowing tests to provide a
controlled writer.

---

ℹ️ Review info

⚙️ Run configuration

Configuration used: Path: .coderabbit.yaml

Review profile: CHILL

Plan: Enterprise

Run ID: 29260ad7-0f35-4b76-b42d-11cc20388e09

📥 Commits

Reviewing files that changed from the base of the PR and between 3c4ea5a and c621279.

📒 Files selected for processing (3)

• src/lib/actions/sandbox/gateway-select.test.ts
• src/lib/actions/sandbox/gateway-select.ts
• test/cli/sandbox-status-json.test.ts

[github-actions]

PR Review Advisor — Informational

Advisor assessment: Informational / high confidence
Next action: No advisor follow-up needed.
Findings: 0 blockers · 0 warnings · 0 suggestions
Status: No actionable findings remain in the canonical review ledger.

Model lanes

• GPT-5.6 Terra (primary): Completed · high confidence · 0 blockers · 0 warnings · 0 suggestions
• Nemotron 3 Ultra (second opinion): Completed · high confidence · 0 blockers · 0 warnings · 0 suggestions
• Model comparison: normalized findings match; normalized E2E selections differ; severity counts match.

Nemotron output stays in workflow artifacts and does not change the assessment above.

E2E guidance

Advisory only. E2E / PR Gate selects and runs jobs independently.

Recommended E2E: cloud-onboard, credential-sanitization, security-posture, onboard-repair, onboard-resume

2 optional E2E recommendations

• gateway-drift-preflight
• gateway-guard-recovery

Workflow run details

This automated review informs maintainers. Warnings and suggestions do not require a response. A maintainer decides whether to merge.

[cjagwani]

Maintainer review complete: exact-head gates pass; JSON stdout remains machine-parseable while gateway-selection output is preserved on stderr; no unresolved correctness or security findings remain.