Q117: commands run in an allowlisted environment, and records and approvals say host isolation is advisory

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5.5 <noreply@anthropic.com>

src/main/database/migrations/088-host-access-note.ts

@@ -0,0 +1,11 @@
+// Pending file-access approvals made before the warning existed get it too; the text is frozen here as it was introduced.
+export const hostAccessNoteSchema = `
+  update approvals
+  set details = details || char(10) || char(10) || 'Approving lets this task run commands on this computer with your user''s file access: they can read and change files outside the workspace. Only their environment is cleaned of keys and your profile.'
+  where state = 'pending' and source_entity_type = 'task' and kind in ('task_risk', 'task_execution')
+    and source_entity_id in (select id from tasks where requires_filesystem = 1)
+    and details not like '%Approving lets this task run commands on this computer%';
+
+  insert into schema_migrations(version, name, applied_at)
+  values (88, 'host_access_note', datetime('now'));
+`;

src/main/database/schema.ts

@@ -86,6 +86,7 @@ import { connectorGrantLimitsSchema } from "./migrations/084-connector-grant-lim
 import { approvalSubjectSnapshotSchema } from "./migrations/085-approval-subject-snapshot";
 import { heldDeliverablesSchema } from "./migrations/086-held-deliverables";
 import { goalAuditorSchema } from "./migrations/087-goal-auditor";
+import { hostAccessNoteSchema } from "./migrations/088-host-access-note";
 
 interface Migration {
   version: number;
@@ -181,6 +182,7 @@ const MIGRATIONS: Migration[] = [
   { version: 85, name: "approval_subject_snapshot", sql: approvalSubjectSnapshotSchema },
   { version: 86, name: "held_deliverables", sql: heldDeliverablesSchema },
   { version: 87, name: "goal_auditor", sql: goalAuditorSchema },
+  { version: 88, name: "host_access_note", sql: hostAccessNoteSchema },
 ];
 
 const SCHEMA_VERSION = MIGRATIONS[MIGRATIONS.length - 1].version;

src/main/services/organization-service.ts

@@ -12,7 +12,7 @@ import { TaskMutations } from "./task-mutations";
 import { normalizeAvatarColor, normalizeAvatarImage } from "./avatar-values";
 import { approvalDecision, autonomy } from "./org-approvals";
 import { admitAgent } from "./agent-admission";
-import { TASK_APPROVAL_KINDS_SQL, TASK_SNAPSHOT_SQL } from "./task-approval";
+import { HOST_ACCESS_NOTE, TASK_APPROVAL_KINDS_SQL, TASK_SNAPSHOT_SQL } from "./task-approval";
 
 export class OrganizationService {
   private readonly audit: AuditService;
@@ -302,7 +302,7 @@ export class OrganizationService {
         id, org_id, kind, title, details, risk, requested_by_type, requested_by_id, source_entity_type, source_entity_id,
         state, decided_by_employee_id, created_at, decided_at, subject_snapshot
       ) values (?, ?, ?, ?, ?, ?, ?, ?, ?, ?, ?, ?, ?, ?, ?)
-    `).run(approvalId, orgId, approvalKind, task.title, task.description, RISK_LEVEL.HIGH, "system", null, "task", taskId,
+    `).run(approvalId, orgId, approvalKind, task.title, task.requires_filesystem === 1 ? `${task.description}\n\n${HOST_ACCESS_NOTE}` : task.description, RISK_LEVEL.HIGH, "system", null, "task", taskId,
       decision.state, decision.decidedBy, now, decision.decidedAt, task.snapshot);
     this.settleApproval(orgId, approvalId, approvalKind, RISK_LEVEL.HIGH, autoApprove);
   }

src/main/services/task-approval.ts

@@ -2,3 +2,6 @@
 export const TASK_SNAPSHOT_SQL = "json_object('title', t.title, 'description', t.description, 'assignee', t.assignee_agent_id, 'risk', t.risk, 'workspace', t.workspace_id, 'filesystem', t.requires_filesystem)";
 
 export const TASK_APPROVAL_KINDS_SQL = "('task_risk', 'task_execution')";
+
+/** What approving file access really allows: commands are not confined to the workspace. */
+export const HOST_ACCESS_NOTE = "Approving lets this task run commands on this computer with your user's file access: they can read and change files outside the workspace. Only their environment is cleaned of keys and your profile.";

src/main/services/task-run-preparation.ts

@@ -113,11 +113,14 @@ export function createIsolationContext(
   if (task.requires_filesystem === 1 && !workspace) throw new Error("Filesystem tasks require a workspace.");
   const serviceIdentityId = requireServiceIdentity(db, orgId, agent.id);
   const executionContextId = createId("ctx");
+  // The mount mode guides the tools; the host does not enforce it, and commands run with the user's file access in an allowlisted environment.
   const workspaceMounts = workspace ? [{
     ...workspaceAccess(task, workspace)[0],
     name: workspace.name,
     localPath: workspace.local_path,
     repoRef: workspace.repo_ref,
+    hostEnforcement: "advisory",
+    commandEnvironment: "allowlisted",
   }] : [];
   return {
     executionContextId,

src/main/services/workspace-command.ts

@@ -1,8 +1,14 @@
 import { spawn, spawnSync } from "node:child_process";
+import { createHash } from "node:crypto";
+import { mkdirSync } from "node:fs";
+import { tmpdir } from "node:os";
+import { join } from "node:path";
 import { currentRunSignal } from "./run-control";
 
 const COMMAND_TIMEOUT_MS = 120_000;
 const KEEP_BYTES = 8_000;
+/** What a command may inherit: enough for the OS and toolchains to run, nothing that carries the user's keys, tokens or profile. */
+const INHERITED_ENV = ["PATH", "PATHEXT", "SystemRoot", "SystemDrive", "windir", "ComSpec", "NUMBER_OF_PROCESSORS", "PROCESSOR_ARCHITECTURE", "OS", "LANG", "LC_ALL", "TERM"];
 
 /** Keeps the first and last KEEP_BYTES of a stream and counts what it drops. */
 export class BoundedOutput {
@@ -47,7 +53,7 @@ export function runCommand(workspaceRoot: string, command: string, options: { ti
   const timeoutMs = options.timeoutMs ?? COMMAND_TIMEOUT_MS;
   return new Promise((resolvePromise) => {
     // Its own process group on POSIX, so the whole tree can be killed at once.
-    const child = spawn(command, { shell: true, cwd: workspaceRoot, windowsHide: true, detached: process.platform !== "win32" });
+    const child = spawn(command, { shell: true, cwd: workspaceRoot, env: commandEnvironment(workspaceRoot), windowsHide: true, detached: process.platform !== "win32" });
     const output = new BoundedOutput();
     let settled = false;
     const runSignal = currentRunSignal();
@@ -79,6 +85,19 @@ export function runCommand(workspaceRoot: string, command: string, options: { ti
   });
 }
 
+/** A command's environment: the allowlisted variables plus a home and temp folder of the workspace's own, so ~ is not the user's profile. */
+export function commandEnvironment(workspaceRoot: string): NodeJS.ProcessEnv {
+  const home = join(tmpdir(), `agentcompany-home-${createHash("sha256").update(workspaceRoot).digest("hex").slice(0, 12)}`);
+  const temp = join(home, "tmp");
+  mkdirSync(temp, { recursive: true });
+  const env: NodeJS.ProcessEnv = { HOME: home, USERPROFILE: home, APPDATA: join(home, "AppData", "Roaming"), LOCALAPPDATA: join(home, "AppData", "Local"), TMP: temp, TEMP: temp, TMPDIR: temp };
+  for (const name of INHERITED_ENV) {
+    const value = process.env[name];
+    if (value !== undefined) env[name] = value;
+  }
+  return env;
+}
+
 /** The tool result for a finished command; no exit code means it was killed, which is never success. */
 export function formatCommandResult(code: number | null, signal: NodeJS.Signals | null, text: string): string {
   const body = text.trim() || "(no output)";