PaperClipAI/packages/adapter-utils/README.md

@paperclipai/adapter-utils

Shared utilities for Paperclip adapters: process spawning, environment injection, sandbox/SSH transport, workspace sync, and the round-trip helpers that move code between the local execution-workspace cwd and wherever the agent actually runs.

For the adapter-author guide see docs/adapters/creating-an-adapter.md and the in-repo notes at packages/adapters/AUTHORING.md.

Sandbox bridge deadlines

Command-managed bridge control operations (queue reads, input delivery, setup, and cleanup) have a host-enforced deadline of at most 30 seconds per shell command. A shorter configured timeout still applies. These operations cannot inherit the agent run's hours-long lifetime or wait forever on a provider that ignores its timeout. Long-lived agent session commands keep their own limits.

A control timeout reports a transport failure. It does not prove that the remote command stopped and does not replay an uncertain write. The process session closes failed input delivery and uses its existing shutdown path; normal execution settlement must still verify termination.

Native archive transfer deadlines

Native syncIn and syncOut calls accept an optional minimumTimeoutMs budget. The server validates this budget and extends the worker RPC deadline. Providers can honor this field for file transfers without changing their configuration. Daytona uses the larger of this minimum and its configured timeout. Other providers keep their existing behavior. The minimum is limited to 30 minutes and does not change sandbox lifetimes, stored settings or the timeout for other commands.

The remote-workspace archive path uses the verified capture size for downloads and the local archive size for uploads. Large archives get one second per MiB plus 60 seconds, capped at 30 minutes. Small archives keep the existing provider timeout when that calculation is no greater than five minutes. Archive size, checksum, confinement and host space checks still apply.

An exact retained-sandbox resume keeps its recorded provider timeout and RPC overhead. It uses the normal one-minute fallback only when no timeout was recorded. A five-minute cold restore must not be cut off by that fallback. Resume still targets the recorded allocation and does not acquire a replacement.

No-remote-git contract

The local execution-workspace cwd is the only persistence boundary across runs. No adapter may depend on a git remote for cross-run state.

Adapters that run the agent on a different host should use the SSH round-trip helpers in src/ssh.ts:

• prepareWorkspaceForSshExecution({ spec, localDir, remoteDir }) — bundles the local cwd (tracked files, dirty edits, untracked additions, and the git history needed to reconstruct it) to remoteDir before the run starts. Runs with no git remote configured.
• restoreWorkspaceFromSshExecution({ spec, localDir, remoteDir, ... }) — syncs the remote cwd back into localDir after the run, including any new commits the agent created. Also runs with no git remote configured.

prepareRemoteManagedRuntime in src/remote-managed-runtime.ts wraps both calls for adapters that want a per-run remote workspace and an automatic restoreWorkspace() finally hook.

The invariant is pinned by the no-remote-git contract case in src/ssh-fixture.test.ts, which asserts that a remote-only commit propagates to the local worktree through the prepare → restore round-trip with no git remote configured at any point. Do not regress that test.