## Thinking Path > - Paperclip coordinates agents and controls when they can run. > - Lifecycle plugins prepare and remove resources for each agent. > - Those resources can require private connection credentials. > - The current SDK can resolve configured secrets but cannot save these credentials securely. > - Ordinary company secrets can be bound to agents and do not provide the required server-only boundary. > - This change saves agent-owned instance secrets through the existing local lifecycle result and native secret service. > - The tenant can retain runtime credentials through restarts without a separate encryption system or remote API. ## Linked Issues or Issue Description **Subsystem affected** Agent lifecycle, plugin contract, and native secret storage. **Problem or motivation** Lifecycle plugins need to save private runtime connection details for the owning agent. Worker memory loses these details on restart. Plugin state and company secrets do not provide a private runtime-only boundary. **Proposed solution** Add optional instance-secret changes to lifecycle results. Save them through the existing secret service and local encrypted provider before accepting the result. Require company, agent, plugin, phase, operation, revision, and current unexpired attempt ownership. Supply saved values through the existing local preparation/resume request. **Alternatives considered** A separate encrypted store duplicates the native secret system. Generic plugin company-secret writes proposed by #5007 do not supply agent ownership or a server-only secret scope. This change does not add that general write API. **Roadmap alignment** Extends the existing lifecycle contract from #15631. It does not add a resource provider or select an execution backend. ## What Changed - Add an instance scope to native secrets with mandatory agent/plugin ownership, a company-qualified agent foreign key, and key uniqueness per owner. Existing company and user scopes retain their constraints. - Reuse native creation, rotation, deletion, secret versions, access audit, and the local encrypted provider. Keep values out of company catalogs, normal bindings, agent access, and public agent records. - Accept local secret patches only after locking and checking the current lifecycle operation and required plugin selection. Storage failure or a stale reply cannot complete setup. Expired or replaced attempt owners cannot overwrite a successor's credentials. - Keep vault-import conflicts company-scoped. Protect instance-owned account-home paths during failed device-login cleanup with a private, fail-closed scan. - Skip decryption on stop and cleanup so a lost key cannot block removal. Cascade secret records when their agent or plugin is deleted. - Log fixed provider diagnostics without raw errors that can contain credentials. Document the local contract, runtime resolver, and access-map exclusions. Retain the five latest migration snapshots through the normal generator pruning. ## Verification - 239 focused tests passed across agent-instance-secrets, lifecycle, secrets-service, secrets-routes, plugin-secrets-handler, and agent-device-login-routes. Used disposable PostgreSQL 18 clusters through the existing test constructor seam because the bundled binary cannot start on this macOS host. The temporary harness is outside git. - Regression tests reproduced the vault-import conflict and missed cleanup claimant before the fixes; both pass after the fixes. - New coverage includes encrypted native versions, rotation, restart recovery, company/agent/plugin isolation, ordinary-read and binding denial, stale replies, storage failure, safe logging, cleanup without the master key, and same-name secret isolation, native account-home mutation guards, lease takeover/expiry, and live agent/plugin deletion cascades. - Direct server TypeScript check, DB/shared typechecks, migration numbering/safety checks, module boundaries, and git diff check passed. - Full workspace typecheck and build were attempted; both stop at the missing local cargo toolchain. The full test command was started and stopped after failures in unchanged native-runtime/workspace suites plus bundled-PostgreSQL skips; it did not complete. CI must verify the full toolchain paths. - Current head `c0f8bfd12477ad509252ecd40e168a6c84dbeb36`: all 55 CI checks passed, including the previously canceled e2e shard. Greptile Apex reviewed this exact head at 5/5 with no unresolved threads. GitHub reports the branch mergeable and clean. - No live provider probe, production data access, or deployment. Reviewed the diff for credentials, private references, and run artifacts. ## Risks Apply migration 0339_luxuriant_iron_monger.sql before deploying tenant code. It adds nullable ownership columns, a partial unique index, foreign keys, and a stricter scope constraint. Existing rows remain valid. Keep the schema on application rollback. Preserve the existing secrets master key through deployments and backup restoration. The lifecycle request/result now has a sensitive, server-only field. Plugins must never log it or return it to an agent or browser. Values stay in the tenant database through the existing encryption provider. Trusted runtime consumers must apply normal execution admission before resolving them. Older hosts omit instanceSecrets; plugins that require durable storage must reject those hosts. ## Model Used OpenAI GPT-6 via Codex, with reasoning, repository inspection, code editing, and local test execution. The exact serving model identifier and context window 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 (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>
Paperclip maps
The maps describe the same capabilities from two perspectives:
- Feature map: what a person can do, where to reach it, and how to verify the user journey. Preserve its Poteto format.
- Agent access map: the APIs and agent entry points for those capabilities, their permission boundaries, and access verification.
These are sibling directories under maps/. Each feature file has a same-named
agent access companion. Reuse the product map's sub-feature IDs, so tasks/create
identifies the same capability in both maps. Product behavior remains governed by
the implementation spec; a map cannot grant
authority or redefine a permission denial as success.
Access contract
Every business operation needs both an API and a usable agent entry point for an
actor authorized to perform it. A dedicated tool is optional when REST, the CLI,
an assigned MCP client, or native search_api / call_api already provides the
operation. Record which agent surfaces actually have that path; an installed CLI
or optional MCP package cannot be assumed available to every native/remote run.
Track these independently:
| Dimension | Values and meaning |
|---|---|
| API | present, missing, not-applicable, or unreviewed. Use exact methods/paths; distinguish protocols from REST. |
| Agent access | available, partial, missing, restricted, operator-only, not-applicable, or unreviewed. Name the supported surface and actual entry point. |
| Policy | Actor, action/grant, company/resource/ownership scope, responsible-user intersection, run requirements, work modes, and gates relevant to the operation. |
| Evidence | source-only, verified, failed, blocked, or not-run. Source presence and successful board calls are not agent verification. |
| Review depth | baseline records representative operations and known gaps; operation-reviewed enumerates the capability's meaningful operations and their individual access contracts. |
Broad capabilities such as task properties must be split into operations before they count as operation-reviewed: renaming, metadata edits, assignment, dependencies, and lifecycle changes can use different tools and permission rules. An available read path cannot certify a write path. List/get/create/update/delete, execution/control, credential handling, and resolution are separate where their authority or transport differs. Do not duplicate request schemas from OpenAPI.
Exceptions and restrictions
Presentation-only state, static developer fixtures, and pre-start/local operator
work may use not-applicable for a domain API, with a concrete reason and the
existing local path. When a capability combines shared data with presentation,
split the operations: browser recents do not exempt resource lookup from API
coverage. Promoting local state to a shared feature requires revisiting the entry.
A board-only endpoint is restricted for agent identity, not an automatic
exception or a missing API. Cite the enforced policy and record whether the
agent can request the authorized human's action and observe its result. An
unresolved delegation question remains in Gaps. Company access, a job title,
a personal assistant's OAuth grant, or an accepted interaction does not grant
board identity. Keep budget, approval, secret and execution authority intact.
Check actual route/service authorization and production tool admission. OpenAPI actor labels and scenario/evaluation tool declarations are supporting metadata; record disagreements rather than using them as proof of access. Native API fallback restrictions, tool field/scope limits, and rollout settings are part of the agent path, even when a legacy agent can call the REST endpoint directly.
Companion file format
Each agent-access-map/<area>.md has an H1, a relative link to its product file,
review date and source commit, followed by one H2 backticked ID per product
sub-feature. Each capability contains these fields:
- Review:
baselineoroperation-reviewed. - API: presence state and exact operation IDs, or a reasoned exception.
- Agent access: availability state and concrete entry points by surface.
- Policy: relevant permission and runtime boundaries, with source references.
- Evidence: evidence state, reviewed commit and sources or executed proof.
- Verification: allowed/denied assertions and observable result; record what has actually run separately from the proposed recipe.
- Gaps: missing APIs/paths, discovery drift, unreviewed operations or policy
decisions; use
noneonly for the enumerated scope that was reviewed.
For an operation-reviewed capability, use H3 backticked operation IDs and repeat
API, Agent access, Policy, Evidence, Verification and Gaps for each operation.
Use small operation names such as create, update, read, or run-now.
The enclosing capability has Review: operation-reviewed only after its
meaningful operations have been enumerated. The following excerpt shows one
operation; include the others before using that review label:
## `definition`
Review: `operation-reviewed`.
### `create`
API: `present` — POST /api/companies/{companyId}/routines.
Agent access: `available` — agent REST, CLI routine create and native call_api
under the enabled rollout and active-run/mode gates.
Policy: same company; assigneeAgentId must be the calling agent; cite the
routine authorization and native API policy sources.
Evidence: `source-only` — reviewed commit and source links; no live proof.
Verification: `not-run` — create an owned routine; reject assignment to another
agent; inspect saved configuration, attribution and retry behavior.
Gaps: verify ownership and responsible-user resolution with a permitted agent
context; source presence alone does not qualify this operation.
Keeping the maps synchronized
When a change adds/removes a capability or changes its behavior, API, permission, tool binding, CLI support, or work mode, update the affected companion and product recipe as appropriate in the same change. Preserve IDs across renames where the capability is unchanged; update both indexes and cross-links together. An API-only change may update the companion without rewriting unchanged user instructions.
maintain-verification-skill owns reconciliation of both maps. It follows changed source and authorization, checks real agent reachability, and records product gaps without implementing them during a maintenance pass. The creation skill uses this structure. verify-paperclip consumes the relevant recipes and reports evidence/drift; map editing belongs to maintenance.
Run the structural check after map changes:
node scripts/check-maps.mjs
It checks paired areas/IDs, indexes, required fields, and local references. It does not certify endpoint authorization, production bindings, operation completeness, or live behavior. Source audits must check those against the existing API and tool contracts; avoid a second schema catalog or runtime.
For live access proof, use Paperclip's existing API/runner/MCP fixtures or an owned
isolated instance. Use the actual agent identity, target and work mode. Assert the
allowed result and relevant denial (another company/private resource, wrong
owner, missing grant, invalid run, restricted mode or resolver). Mutations also
need persisted state/attribution and retry behavior. Capture evidence using the
existing artifact workflow; keep executed run results
separate from product-map coverage.json, which records documentation scope.