fix(ci): remove the shared root causes of flaky Windows CI

[lidge-jun]

Summary

Windows Cross-platform CI failed on a rotating set of shards (1/9, 2/9, 3/9, 4/9, 7/9, 8/9, 9/9) across recent dispatches. Past fixes stubbed individual tests (#7088, #7091). This PR removes the shared causes instead.

1. Teardown deadlocked against in-process background work (compaction EBUSY, windows 4/9). The pre-route pool quota prime runs without being awaited. It holds the native-main claim database open across ACL hardening and a WHAM read. Teardown retried rm with Bun.sleepSync, which blocks the event loop the prime needs to reach its finally. Every retry then failed with EBUSY until the 15 s budget ran out.

• New src/lib/background-work.ts tracks fire-and-forget work. The pool prime, its lazy-import callers, and the config-dir ACL harden flight register there.
• tests/preload.ts settles tracked work after every case (bounded at 2 s, warns and names the work otherwise). A prime started in one case can no longer write the next case's state.
• removeTreeAfterBackgroundWork settles tracked work, reaps icacls children, then retries removal with waits that yield. removeTreeWithRetry now names any in-process work still running when it gives up.
• The per-test prime stubs from test(compaction): shared-probe cases leak the native-main claim into teardown on Windows (EBUSY) #7088/test(compaction): stub the in-handler pre-route prime so Windows teardown can remove CODEX_HOME #7091 are reverted, so the real prime runs again. Instrumented locally, the prime was pending at teardown in exactly the two failing cases.

2. Config reads re-ran icacls on every load (the "transient icacls stall" flood; 20 s child timeouts in catalog drift heal, routing editor, status, modelAliases sync). hardenConfigDir and hardenExistingSecret ran chmod before the ACL memo check. On Windows that changes ctime and invalidates the memo, so each loadConfig spawned icacls again (nine extra ACL commands on a second load in the new regression). On Windows the chmod now runs only where POSIX modes apply. Spawned test children use a shared runner that bounds exit and pipe EOF separately, so a grandchild holding an inherited pipe can't hang a finished child.

3. Response-state shutdown could return before a follow-up write was scheduled (combo replay "Expected false", windows 2/9). The snapshot writer released its gate before deciding to schedule the follow-up. flushResponseSnapshot could see no timer and return just before one was armed. The gate now covers the timer decision. Reproduced deterministically on macOS with three new regressions.

4. Tray probe and auxiliary listener (windows 8/9, 9/9). The tray test's nested PowerShell probe child missed its 5 s readiness window. It is now a Bun child. The tray UI tick no longer blocks on probe exit, and timed-out probes stay tracked until reaped. ocx start rejects an occupied auxiliary port before startup does its synchronous Windows ACL work, which took the soft-start case to its 47 s watchdog.

5. Review follow-up (18895e5f8). removeTreeAfterBackgroundWork no longer removes a tree while tracked work is still running. It names the work and keeps the tree. Final sandbox cleanup bounds settlement at 15 s and leaves the root for stale recovery. spawnTestChild rejects when the child never started. The auxiliary preflight rejects loopback and hub management configured on the same port. Tray shutdown releases a probe only after it has exited and its pipe readers have finished.

The V2 refusal case (windows 7/9) actually failed on toggles (requests 1, toggles 0), meaning the handler refused before the native toggle. The CI log didn't show why. The likely cause is the config-dir icacls flight from the previous case racing the config write, which items 1 and 2 address. The assertion now prints the CLI errors if it recurs.

The ETXTBSY desktop-shell fix is a separate PR (#7106). #7089 (exact NTFS file ids) is not included here; it was dispatched on its own branch.

Verification

Cross-platform CI (gh workflow run ci.yml -f lane=all, manual dispatch) on the final head 18895e5f8. Each run passed every job, including windows 1–9/9, macos 1–3/3, Linux test 1–4/4, keyring windows, desktop shell, and macos widget + bundle:

• Run 1: https://github.com/lidge-jun/opencodex/actions/runs/38618683553
• Run 2: https://github.com/lidge-jun/opencodex/actions/runs/38618694617
• Run 3: https://github.com/lidge-jun/opencodex/actions/runs/38618706022
• Pull-request CI on the same head: https://github.com/lidge-jun/opencodex/actions/runs/38618685513

The previous head b01d757, before the review follow-up, also passed three manual lane=all runs with all Windows shards green: 38602798169, 38602812979, 38602826771. Baseline with only the teardown fix (9e93f72c0): https://github.com/lidge-jun/opencodex/actions/runs/38579328142. Windows 4/9 (compaction) passed with the stubs reverted, and Windows 3/9 hit the icacls/spawn class that item 2 fixes.

Local (macOS):

• bun run typecheck, bun run structure:check, bun run privacy:scan, git diff --check: pass.
• Review follow-up: 67 pass / 0 fail across cli-start-auxiliary-bind, remove-tree-helper, cold-spawn-warmup, and windows-tray. The file-size ratchet and test-layout guards pass (11 / 0).
• Earlier heads: focused 584 pass / 0 fail across the changed and affected files. On the full bun run test, the only failures were ones that also fail on clean dev on this host (sibling-home secondary ensure, live audio readiness, Desktop hub cold restart).
• The full suite was not rerun locally after the review follow-up. This host is the shared home Mac, so the three hosted cross-platform runs above are the full-suite evidence.

Maintainer integration. The project owner merges this into dev under the maintainer-integration policy in MAINTAINERS.md, based on the exact-head evidence above, and ships it in 2.86.0.

Checklist

• Scope stays focused and avoids unrelated cleanup.
• Docs or release notes were updated when needed. (structure/ docs for config, codex-home, runtime, and test sandbox cleanup updated.)
• Security-sensitive changes were reviewed for secrets, auth, and unsafe defaults. ACL hardening is still applied on every Windows path. Only the redundant chmod that invalidated the memo is skipped. Required hardening paths are unchanged.

Summary by CodeRabbit

• Bug Fixes
  • Auxiliary listener ports are checked before startup proceeds. Failed auxiliary binds no longer leave spend-ledger data or admin API tokens in the configured home directory.
  • Response-state changes are saved more reliably during shutdown and concurrent updates, avoiding unnecessary follow-up saves when the latest state is already persisted.
  • Windows configuration files and directories receive platform-appropriate protection, while repeated reads preserve valid security checks.
  • The Windows tray handles hung startup checks and shutdown more responsively, retaining process ownership until cleanup completes.
• Tests
  • Improved test process cleanup and background-task handling to reduce flaky runs and prevent temporary data from being removed before child processes finish.

[chatgpt-codex-connector]

Codex Review Summary

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Review	Status	Commit	Review trigger
📝 Code Review	✅ Completed 2026-10-14T15:48:54.421806Z	1d6d35c	PR opened

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📥 Commits

Reviewing files that changed from the base of the PR and between b01d757 and 18895e5.

📒 Files selected for processing: 7

• src/cli/auxiliary-listener-preflight.ts
• src/tray/windows-tray.ps1
• tests/ci-workflows/cold-spawn-warmup.test.ts
• tests/cli/cli-start-auxiliary-bind.test.ts
• tests/helpers/remove-tree.ts
• tests/helpers/spawn-test-child.ts
• tests/preload.ts

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📝 Walkthrough

This pull request adds background-work tracking and safer test cleanup, changes response snapshot flush serialization, adds CLI auxiliary-listener preflight checks, and revises Windows tray startup-probe cleanup. It also updates child-process test support, test cache handling, Windows DPAPI timeouts, and related tests and documentation.

Changes: Background Work and Safe Teardown

Layer / File(s)	Summary
Track background work and harden config paths src/lib/background-work.ts, src/codex/..., src/server/index.ts, src/config/..., tests/windows/windows-config-read-acl-memo.test.ts, tests/fixtures/test-layout-expected.json, scripts/test-layout/layout.json, structure/config.md, tests/responses/responses-compaction-routing.test.ts	Added labeled tracking and settlement for background promises. Quota priming and Windows ACL hardening register work. Config hardening skips chmod on Windows and retains private POSIX modes elsewhere. Tests cover repeated Windows config reads, metadata changes, and POSIX modes.
Settle background work before tree removal scripts/test-temp.ts, tests/helpers/remove-tree.ts, tests/helpers/compaction-routing-fixtures.ts, tests/lib/remove-tree-helper.test.ts, tests/preload.ts, structure/ops/test-sandbox-cleanup.md	Added asynchronous tree removal and teardown that settles tracked work before deletion. Test cleanup waits for quota-prime work and Windows ACL reaps. Preload hooks settle work after tests and during final cleanup.

Test Child Process Lifecycle

Layer / File(s)	Summary
Add shared child runner and warm-up integration tests/helpers/spawn-test-child.ts, tests/helpers/cold-spawn-warmup.ts, tests/ci-workflows/cold-spawn-warmup.test.ts	Added a shared child runner with bounded output capture and timeout, reaping, and pipe-closure results. Warm-up code delegates process handling to it, and tests cover its reported results.
Use child results to protect test fixtures tests/cli/cli-route-policy-write.test.ts, tests/cli/cli-status-json.test.ts, tests/codex-integration/catalog-auto-refresh-scheduler.test.ts, structure/ops/test-sandbox-cleanup.md	CLI and catalog tests use the shared runner and remove temporary roots only after confirmed child completion. The cleanup guide documents child ownership and fixture-retention conditions.

Response Snapshot Persistence

Layer / File(s)	Summary
Serialize writes and shutdown flushes src/responses/state.ts, tests/responses/responses-state-flush-race.test.ts, structure/codex-home.md, scripts/test-layout/layout.json, tests/fixtures/test-layout-expected.json	The persistence gate now covers writes and follow-up scheduling. Shutdown flushes wait for the gate and handle pending follow-up writes. New race tests cover background and concurrent writes, and the test is added to the responses shard.

CLI Auxiliary Listener Preflight

Layer / File(s)	Summary
Probe auxiliary ports before proxy port selection src/cli/auxiliary-listener-preflight.ts, src/cli/index.ts, tests/cli/cli-start-auxiliary-bind.test.ts, structure/runtime.md	CLI startup probes enabled auxiliary listener ports on IPv4 loopback before proxy port selection. Tests cover listener selection rules and failed-bind side effects. The runtime documentation states that preflight does not reserve the port.

Windows Tray Startup Probe

Layer / File(s)	Summary
Track probe termination through process and stream completion src/tray/windows-tray.ps1, tests/helpers/windows-tray-probe-child.ts, tests/helpers/windows-tray-probe-lifecycle-driver.ps1, tests/windows/windows-tray.test.ts, structure/runtime.md	Probe timeouts and inspection failures request termination without blocking normal tray ticks. Cleanup retains the process until exit and both readers settle; tray shutdown waits up to 500 ms. Tests use a Bun probe child and cover the lifecycle scenarios.

Runtime and Test Support Updates

Layer / File(s)	Summary
Update test cache, DPAPI timeouts, and proxy environment scripts/ci/run-bun-test-batches.sh, src/codex/desktop-compatibility/windows-key-protection.ts, tests/clients/desktop-compatibility-authority.test.ts, tests/lib/optional-desktop-upstream.test.ts, tests/cli/cli-v2-runtime.test.ts	The test-batch script creates a temporary transpiler cache only when none is configured. The Windows DPAPI timeout increases to 20 seconds, and its test allowance increases to 65 seconds. The desktop-upstream test removes inherited proxy variables before setting its case-specific route. The CLI runtime assertion now checks request count, native-toggle count, and captured errors together.

Priority: ➖ Normal

Estimated code review effort: 4 (Complex) | ~50 minutes

Change: Bug fix

Sequence Diagram(s)

sequenceDiagram
  participant CLI
  participant AuxiliaryListenerPreflight
  participant LoopbackSocket
  CLI->>AuxiliaryListenerPreflight: check configured listener ports
  AuxiliaryListenerPreflight->>LoopbackSocket: bind and close enabled port on 127.0.0.1
  LoopbackSocket-->>AuxiliaryListenerPreflight: return bind or close result
  AuxiliaryListenerPreflight-->>CLI: continue or reject with bind error

Loading

sequenceDiagram
  participant Tray
  participant ProbeProcess
  participant OutputReaders
  Tray->>ProbeProcess: request termination on timeout or shutdown
  ProbeProcess-->>Tray: report process exit
  OutputReaders-->>Tray: settle stdout and stderr readers
  Tray->>ProbeProcess: dispose process after exit and reader completion

Loading

Merge Risk: 🔵 Low · up to 18895

Startup can still fail late when the selected public port matches hub management ingress, and tray shutdown can leave probe readers incomplete. Both risks are bounded, but they warrant owner follow-up.

Pre-merge checks: 4 · 1

Failed checks: 1 warning

Check name	Status	Explanation	Resolution
Docstring Coverage		Docstring coverage is 42.42% which is insufficient. The required threshold is 80.00%. Docstring coverage is scoped to functions touched by this diff. Analyzed 33 functions across 31 files. (1 skipped:…	Write docstrings for the functions missing them to satisfy the coverage threshold.

Passed checks: 4 passed

Check name	Status	Explanation
Linked Issues check		Check skipped because no linked issues were found for this pull request.
Out of Scope Changes check		Check skipped because no linked issues were found for this pull request.
Description Check		Check skipped - CodeRabbit’s high-level summary is enabled.
Title check		The title clearly summarizes the main change: addressing shared causes of flaky Windows CI across teardown, ACL, child-process, tray, and listener-preflight behavior.

Full details: Docstring Coverage

Explanation

Docstring coverage is 42.42% which is insufficient. The required threshold is 80.00%. Docstring coverage is scoped to functions touched by this diff. Analyzed 33 functions across 31 files. (1 skipped: 1 unsupported.)

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Actionable comments posted: 6

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• 🪄 Fix comments: Fix CodeRabbit comments on this PR

🤖 Prompt to fix review comments

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Inline comments:
Review comments at @src/cli/auxiliary-listener-preflight.ts:
- Around line 18-21: In src/cli/auxiliary-listener-preflight.ts, update the
preflight loop around targets to reject equal explicit ports among enabled
loopback and hub-management listeners before probing binds. In src/cli/index.ts,
update public-port selection to reject a collision with enabled hub-management
ingress and exclude that port from selection.

Review comments at @src/tray/windows-tray.ps1:
- Around line 236-237: Update the startup-probe cleanup around
startupProbeProcess and Complete-StartupHealthProbe to verify the process has
exited and both pipe readers have completed before clearing its tracked
reference. If shutdown times out or the probe remains active, retain ownership
or explicitly report it as unreaped rather than marking cleanup complete.

Review comments at @tests/cli/cli-start-auxiliary-bind.test.ts:
- Line 75: Move both Bun.serve calls in the listeners setup inside the try
block, and update the finally cleanup to stop every server that started,
including when the second bind throws. Use the existing listeners collection to
track successfully created servers.

Review comments at @tests/helpers/remove-tree.ts:
- Around line 52-54: Check the result of settleBackgroundWork in the
tree-removal helper before calling removeTestTempTreeAsync. If settled is false,
report the pending work labels and retain the tree for sandbox recovery; only
continue to removal once tracked work has settled.

Review comments at @tests/helpers/spawn-test-child.ts:
- Line 95: Update the child process error handler around `child.on("error",
finish)` to reject with the spawn error when no `spawn` event has occurred;
after spawning, retain the existing `finish` settlement behavior.

Review comments at @tests/preload.ts:
- Line 137: Bound the final call to settleBackgroundWork with a deadline so an
unsettled tracked task cannot hang cleanup indefinitely. If the deadline
expires, report the remaining task labels and retain the sandbox root instead of
removing it while a task may still own it.

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ℹ️ Review info

⚙️ Run configuration

• Configuration used: Repository: lidge-jun/opencodex/.coderabbit.yaml
• Review profile: ASSERTIVE
• Plan: Advanced
• Run ID: edadba05-3721-49c1-ba4b-64562a3a0e16

📥 Commits

Reviewing files that changed from the base of the PR and between 08bb2e4 and 1d6d35c.

📒 Files selected for processing: 35

• scripts/test-layout/layout.json
• scripts/test-temp.ts
• src/cli/auxiliary-listener-preflight.ts
• src/cli/index.ts
• src/codex/auth-api/pool-mode-gate.ts
• src/codex/auth-context.ts
• src/config/load-degrade.ts
• src/config/paths.ts
• src/lib/background-work.ts
• src/responses/state.ts
• src/server/index.ts
• src/tray/windows-tray.ps1
• structure/codex-home.md
• structure/config.md
• structure/ops/test-sandbox-cleanup.md
• structure/runtime.md
• tests/ci-workflows/cold-spawn-warmup.test.ts
• tests/cli/cli-route-policy-write.test.ts
• tests/cli/cli-start-auxiliary-bind.test.ts
• tests/cli/cli-status-json.test.ts
• tests/cli/cli-v2-runtime.test.ts
• tests/codex-integration/catalog-auto-refresh-scheduler.test.ts
• tests/fixtures/test-layout-expected.json
• tests/helpers/cold-spawn-warmup.ts
• tests/helpers/compaction-routing-fixtures.ts
• tests/helpers/remove-tree.ts
• tests/helpers/spawn-test-child.ts
• tests/helpers/windows-tray-probe-child.ts
• tests/helpers/windows-tray-probe-lifecycle-driver.ps1
• tests/lib/remove-tree-helper.test.ts
• tests/preload.ts
• tests/responses/responses-compaction-routing.test.ts
• tests/responses/responses-state-flush-race.test.ts
• tests/windows/windows-config-read-acl-memo.test.ts
• tests/windows/windows-tray.test.ts

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