## Thinking Path > - Paperclip is the open source app people use to manage AI agents for work. > - Conversations must use the same tasks, controls, and execution history. > - Users need an ongoing chat with an agent without managing task properties. > - Agents should clarify and plan work, then hand execution to assigned project tasks. > - This pull request combines the reviewed Agent Chat stack for one squash merge. > - The benefit is persistent conversation with normal task governance and shared UI. ## Linked Issues or Issue Description **Subsystem affected** Task lifecycle, agent runtime tools, shared task UI, and browser/paid runner tests. **Problem or motivation** Users need one persistent conversation with each agent. A separate chat store or renderer would duplicate task behavior and bypass existing controls. **Proposed solution** Use a task-backed chat per company, user, and agent. Reuse the task composer and transcript. Clarify and plan in chat, then create assigned project tasks with the relevant plan. Keep Agent Chat behind its own disabled-by-default experimental setting. **Roadmap alignment** This implements the task-backed direction in [CEO Chat](https://github.com/paperclipai/paperclip/blob/master/ROADMAP.md#-ceo-chat). Related proposals: #2504 and #9693. Related request: #7981. The maintainer requested one squash merge of the complete stack. Consolidates the reviewed runtime [#13281](https://github.com/paperclipai/paperclip/pull/13281), backend [#13282](https://github.com/paperclipai/paperclip/pull/13282), and UI [#13283](https://github.com/paperclipai/paperclip/pull/13283) layers with this PR's E2E coverage. All four layers passed CI and received Greptile 5/5 before consolidation. This PR targets master and includes the complete feature. ## What Changed - Add personal canonical chat tasks with ordinary company visibility, immutable identity, idempotent first sends, and an idle waiting state. - Process `/new` in queue order. Preserve history, release a chat pause, and fence old provider context and delayed writes. - Keep chat lifecycle rules across recovery, finalization, assignment, task lists, and rollups. - Support research and plan revision in chat. Hand plans to ordinary assigned project tasks before execution starts. Reject new chat subtasks. - Add repository-aware project creation and discovery tools, including multiple repository IDs and GitHub URLs, authorization, idempotency, and durable project-created cards. - Reuse task UI components for chat, with starred/recent agent navigation and a separate `enableAgentChat` experimental flag. - Add deterministic browser tests and 24 paid chat cells across four Codex/Claude profiles, with validated reports and screenshots. - Integrate current master recovery, controller lease, queued-message, and task UI changes. Gate chat interruption and deferred promotion on ownership/feature policy. Guarantee lease renewal and active controls are stopped even if teardown fails. - Preserve master's migration 0273 and generate chat migration 0274 with idempotent replay for development databases. ## Verification - Prior exact heads of all four PRs passed Linux CI, including build, typecheck, general/serialized tests, and browser E2E. Each had Greptile 5/5 and no unresolved findings. - Integrated local verification passed: full repository typecheck and production build, Storybook build, token gates, 340 focused UI tests, all 20 deterministic chat browser tests, two migration replay tests, 88 focused chat/queue/native/controller tests, and provider/session regressions including real lease expiry. These include the three lifecycle regressions for the final admission/teardown fixes; server typecheck also passes. Current head `1268eda16cc2af892055917e7292f068820be135` has Greptile 5/5 with no unresolved findings and passing security scans. All final-head CI gates passed: build, full Runner verification, typecheck/release registry, canary, all general/serialized test shards, and all browser E2E shards ([CI run](https://github.com/paperclipai/paperclip/actions/runs/34696739927)). Local PostgreSQL startup contention required serialized retries; skipped fixtures do not count as passing coverage. - The earlier paid campaign passed all 24 chat cells and retained 32 screenshots: [report](https://d1p6rlowie26tp.cloudfront.net/runner-e2e/campaigns/gha-34648511170-1/index.html?report=agent-chat#suite-agent-chat). It tested `abacbdfd2f660709ec37312cdb758284c8399d04`; it is prior evidence, not a paid run of this integrated head. - Manual check: enable Agent Chat in Experimental settings, open an agent, clarify and revise a plan, then hand off to an assigned project task. Stop a reply, send `/new`, and verify fresh context with retained history. Disable the setting and verify agent shortcuts/new chat turns are blocked. ## Risks - Queue/session integration can affect retries and delayed writes. Tests cover ownership, cancellation, reset boundaries, idle recovery, and ordinary task behavior. - Migration 0274 adds conversation fields and constraints. Replay is idempotent and preserves existing development chat history. - This combines the previously reviewed stack at the maintainer's request. Agent Chat remains off by default and is separate from Conference Room. ## Model Used OpenAI Codex, GPT-6 Astra (`gpt-6-astra`), with reasoning, code execution, browser tools, and parallel review. The exact context-window size is not exposed in this session. Codex and Claude also ran as test subjects in the linked paid campaign. ## 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>
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Runner E2E security for a public repository
This suite can spend provider money, expose four API credentials to isolated test processes, publish a container, retain private visual evidence, and write public structured evidence. Treat changes to the workflow, harness, fixture prompts, evidence packager, and publisher as security-sensitive production changes.
GitHub authorization
Set RUNNER_E2E_ALLOWED_ACTOR_IDS to a non-empty JSON array of numeric GitHub
user IDs. Keep the list equal to the owners of .github/** in
.github/CODEOWNERS. For example, use [123456,789012]. Resolve each ID from
the authenticated CLI and verify the login before adding it:
gh api users/LOGIN --jq '{login,id}'
The paid workflows reject manual dispatches when the workflow definition does
not come from the default branch. A trusted dispatcher may name any branch in
paperclipai/paperclip as the code under test. The authorization job resolves
that branch through the GitHub API and passes only its immutable commit SHA to a
credential-free target-lock job. That job checks out the commit, regenerates
pnpm-lock.yaml once with lifecycle scripts disabled and lockfile-only mode,
then uploads the file under a run-attempt-scoped artifact ID. Catalog, image,
shared-build, provider-pack, and paid test jobs download that exact artifact by
ID, verify its recorded SHA-256, and restore it before setup or a frozen
dependency install. The lock resolver receives no provider credentials and
must never run repository lifecycle scripts. The shared-build and provider-pack
jobs also receive no provider credentials and disable dependency lifecycle
scripts; they package outputs with SHA-256 sidecars that consumers verify
before extraction. The paid test job installs with lifecycle scripts disabled,
and materializes the exact pinned OpenCode executable from its lockfile-verified
optional package without invoking package lifecycle code. Provider secrets are
scoped only to the final test step rather than dependency setup. Report sanitization and AWS
history publication explicitly use the trusted workflow commit and do not
consume the target lockfile. Never run the workflow definition from the target
branch.
The workflows verify both the original actor and triggering actor for every scheduled or manual attempt, including human reruns. Every secret-bearing job repeats this check as its first step so GitHub's partial-job rerun feature cannot bypass a successful predecessor authorization job. The legacy manually dispatched E2E workflow uses the same gate. Numeric IDs are stable across username changes and prevent lookalike-name authorization.
The full-stack and live campaigns have one Sunday UTC schedule each and also support explicit manual dispatch. Their legacy-named nightly repository variables remain independent kill switches. Neither paid workflow accepts pull-request, push, workflow-run, or reusable-workflow triggers.
Protect the default branch, require review for workflow/harness paths, restrict workflow dispatch permission, and restrict repository variable/environment administration to the same trusted maintainers. Configure the organization to allow only approved GitHub Actions. A malicious change merged into the default branch executes with the same authority as the suite.
Every external action in the paid workflow is pinned to a full commit SHA. Keep the adjacent major-version comment for update tooling, and resolve and review a new immutable SHA before upgrading an action. The credential-free security test rejects mutable tag or branch references.
Secrets and protected environments
Create runner-e2e-paid, restrict deployments to the default branch, and put
only OPENAI_API_KEY, ANTHROPIC_API_KEY, OPENROUTER_API_KEY, and
DAYTONA_API_KEY in it. Do not duplicate these credentials as repository- or
organization-level Actions secrets: environment scoping is the boundary that
prevents branch or pull-request jobs from requesting them. Require approval
from an account in RUNNER_E2E_ALLOWED_ACTOR_IDS for this environment and
disable administrator bypass. The authorize, target-lock, catalog, image,
report, history, and Pages jobs receive none of these secrets.
Each full-stack matrix cell receives only its selected profile credential, plus
Daytona only for Daytona cells. Secret-bearing and OIDC jobs use frozen installs
without a shared dependency cache.
On disposable GitHub Linux runners with Ubuntu's unprivileged-user-namespace
restriction, the authorized default-branch workflow provisions an AppArmor profile before provider credentials are exposed. The profile is attached to the exact
lockfile-pinned Codex executable. It grants userns so Codex can construct its
filesystem sandbox; it does not disable the kernel restriction or Codex's
workspace policy. Setup fails before invoking a model if the noninteractive
profile load fails. Target-controlled tests only probe the existing sandbox and never invoke sudo or load host policy. This host-only profile disappears with the ephemeral runner.
See Ubuntu's namespace restriction documentation.
Local developer machines are never modified by this setup. Legacy Codex fixtures
disable optional shell-environment snapshots to avoid persisting credentials;
the secret scanner retains its existing rejection rules.
The Paperclip server process also receives none; the browser posts each value
once to the encrypted company secret API and agents/environments retain only
secret references.
Create runner-e2e-history, also default-branch-only, for the OIDC publishing
job. It contains no long-lived AWS key. Required reviewers may be added when a
human approval on every nightly publication is acceptable; otherwise rely on
the actor gate, environment branch restriction, and protected default branch.
Runner fleet isolation
When RUNNER_E2E_AWS_ENABLED=true, paid matrix cells use the exact RunsOn fleet
selector runs-on/fleet=paperclip-public-pr-x64/env=public-ci, matching the AWS
fleet selected by pr-trusted.yml only after its stable numeric-ID trust gate.
Any other or missing toggle value falls back to the GitHub-hosted
ubuntu-latest runner and its lower concurrency ceiling. The workflow chooses
between those two reviewed literal labels; it never evaluates a configured
runner label.
Keep both runner targets restricted to paperclipai/paperclip and workflows
that independently authorize trusted source revisions. Never let a fork or
untrusted pull-request workflow target them. The RunsOn fleet must launch a
fresh ephemeral instance for every job, prohibit persistent runner reuse, and
disable interactive SSH/debug access unless a separate incident procedure
explicitly authorizes it.
Changing the runner does not widen who can authorize secret access. The paid
workflow still has only schedule and manual triggers, requires its trusted
definition to come from the protected default branch, requires allowlisted
stable actor IDs before checkout, and repeats that authorization as the first
matrix step. Provider credentials come only from the protected
runner-e2e-paid environment. The fleet selector is an exact workflow literal;
the only repository-controlled routing input is its boolean rollout switch, so
configuration cannot redirect a secret-bearing job to an arbitrary runner.
The optional target branch is code, not workflow authority. A CODEOWNER who dispatches a target branch explicitly authorizes that branch's selected test process to receive the cell's scoped provider credential. The workflow resolves the target only inside the same repository, pins one SHA for the campaign, and checks it out only after authorization. Target-controlled code cannot replace the report sanitizer or the AWS history publisher. Fork refs and target-controlled workflow definitions do not enter this path.
AWS OIDC and S3
The AWS role trust policy should accept only GitHub's OIDC audience and the publishing environment subject:
{
"Version": "2012-10-17",
"Statement": [
{
"Effect": "Allow",
"Principal": {
"Federated": "arn:aws:iam::ACCOUNT_ID:oidc-provider/token.actions.githubusercontent.com"
},
"Action": "sts:AssumeRoleWithWebIdentity",
"Condition": {
"StringEquals": {
"token.actions.githubusercontent.com:aud": "sts.amazonaws.com",
"token.actions.githubusercontent.com:sub": "repo:paperclipai/paperclip:environment:runner-e2e-history"
}
}
}
]
}
Grant only List on the bucket prefix and Get/Put on its objects. Do not grant Delete, ACL, bucket-policy, or wildcard-resource permissions:
{
"Version": "2012-10-17",
"Statement": [
{
"Effect": "Allow",
"Action": "s3:ListBucket",
"Resource": "arn:aws:s3:::BUCKET",
"Condition": {
"StringLike": { "s3:prefix": ["runner-e2e", "runner-e2e/*"] }
}
},
{
"Effect": "Allow",
"Action": ["s3:GetObject", "s3:PutObject"],
"Resource": "arn:aws:s3:::BUCKET/runner-e2e/*"
}
]
}
Enable S3 versioning, default encryption, and Block Public Access. Disable object ACLs. CloudFront receives read-only access through Origin Access Control; the bucket itself stays private. Log S3 data writes and alert on attempts to write outside the prefix or assume the role with a different subject.
Campaign prefixes are content-digested and immutable. The publisher refuses a different digest at an existing campaign key. Only the compact history and latest pointers are mutable, and S3 versioning makes those updates recoverable.
Public evidence boundary
CloudFront and GitHub Pages are public. Fixture identifiers, timing, token
usage, costs, normalized results, allowlisted inert structured per-attempt
evidence, and trusted runner PNG screenshots are expected public data. Each
public screenshot must carry the explicit public-runner-fixture marker in
the normalized result. This includes a failure.png capture. Screenshot paths
must be safe PNG basenames and must be tied to the exact normalized execution
ID and attempt. The runner capture helper accepts only the exact issue route
for the live fixture that the harness created. Other issue routes, credential
pages, setup pages, and administration pages fail closed. The
CloudFront-backed S3 history also publishes one
synthetic campaign-summary PNG generated by trusted publisher code solely from
fixed catalog labels and sanitized numeric/status fields. Video, archives,
generated Playwright/blob/HTML report trees, SVG or other active content,
credentials, Paperclip homes, databases, workspaces, master keys,
raw/unredacted logs, unmarked images, and unallowlisted files are not public.
Allowlisted .log copies must pass the existing exact-value/key-shape scan and
redaction boundary.
The packaged evidence uploaded as a 30-day GitHub Actions artifact has a different, broader boundary. Text is exact-value and key-shape scanned and redacted. PNG and WebM are raw-byte scanned; SVG is rejected during packaging because it is active content. Raster pixels cannot be exhaustively secret-scanned by bytes, so fixture authors must treat every marked capture as public and must never extend the allowed task route to credentials, secrets, private user data, or other non-public content. Adding or changing a marked capture requires review of the visible page state. Videos remain access-controlled.
Before permanent publication, the campaign publisher creates a separate S3
stage and retains only allowlisted .json, .log, .md, and .txt evidence,
result PNGs with the explicit public-runner-fixture marker.
It then launches publisher-only Chromium with networking blocked to render one
public-images/campaign-summary.png. That fixed-path PNG is capped at 12 MiB
and its signature is validated. Per-attempt XML is excluded because browsers
can process XML/XSLT;
the only public XML is the root junit.xml, which the report aggregator
constructs from fixed markup and XML-escaped fields. Videos, archives,
raw/unallowlisted logs, SVG, undeclared images, generated reports, and symlinks
fail closed or are removed before the immutable manifest is calculated.
GitHub Pages is built from a second stage without the synthetic summary PNG but with the same trusted-fixture screenshot allowlist. A leak detected by the existing packager scan fails the cell and withholds the unsafe file.
Rotate the affected credential immediately if a secret-scanning failure or unexpected public object is observed. Preserve the access-controlled Actions artifact and S3 object versions for incident analysis; do not weaken scanning to make a campaign publish.