# OpenCode Session Runtime

OpenCode sessions preserve durable conversational history while assembling the runtime context an agent needs to act correctly in its current environment.

## Language

**System Context**:
The structured collection of contextual facts presented to the model as initial instructions and chronological updates.
_Avoid_: System prompt

**Session History**:
The projected chronological conversation selected for a provider turn after applying the active compaction and **Context Epoch** cutoffs.
_Avoid_: Session Context

**Context Source**:
One independently observed typed value within the **System Context**, represented by a stable key, JSON codec, infallible loader, pure baseline/update renderers, and an optional removal renderer for dynamic sources.
_Avoid_: Prompt fragment

**System Context Registry**:
The Location-scoped registry of ordered, scoped producers that contribute to the current **System Context**.

**Mid-Conversation System Message**:
A durable chronological instruction that tells the model the newly effective state of a changed **Context Source**.
_Avoid_: System update, system notification, raw text diff

**Context Epoch**:
The span during which one initially rendered **System Context** remains the immutable provider-cache baseline, ending at completed compaction, Session movement, or an incompatible context transition that requires a fresh baseline.

**Baseline System Context**:
The full **System Context** rendered at the start of a **Context Epoch**.
_Avoid_: Live system prompt

**Context Snapshot**:
The overwriteable model-hidden JSON state used to compare each **Context Source** with the value last admitted to a provider turn.

**Unavailable Context**:
An expected temporary inability to observe a **Context Source** value; the runtime retains its prior effective state and emits no update, or omits it until first successfully loaded.

**Safe Provider-Turn Boundary**:
The point immediately before a provider call, after durable input promotion and any required tool settlement, where context changes may be admitted chronologically.

**Admitted Prompt**:
A durable user input accepted into the Session inbox but not yet included in **Session History**.

**Prompt Promotion**:
The durable transition that removes an **Admitted Prompt** from pending input and appends its user message to **Session History**.

**Provider Turn**:
One request to a model provider and the response projected from that request.

**Session Drain**:
One process-local execution span that promotes eligible input and runs required **Provider Turns** until no immediate continuation remains. A Session Drain has no durable identity or transcript boundary.

**Model Tool Output**:
The bounded projection of a Core-executed tool result persisted in Session history and replayed to the model. A tool may shape this projection semantically, but the Tool Registry enforces the final size limit.

**Managed Tool Output File**:
A temporary file created under OpenCode's shared tool-output directory to retain complete output that was too large for Session history.

**PTY Environment**:
The host-supplied environment overlay applied by the server when creating a PTY, observed for the request Location and resolved PTY working directory.

## Relationships

- A **System Context** is an opaque carrier composed from zero or more **Context Sources**.
- **Session History** contains projected conversational messages and admitted **Mid-Conversation System Messages**; the active **Baseline System Context** remains separate provider-request state.
- The **System Context Registry** uses stable-keyed scoped contributions to assemble the current **System Context**; contributor removal naturally removes its sources at the next **Safe Provider-Turn Boundary**.
- A changed **Context Source** may produce one **Mid-Conversation System Message** containing its newly effective state.
- A **Mid-Conversation System Message** persists the exact combined rendered text sent to the model.
- The current **Context Snapshot** advances atomically with the corresponding durable **Mid-Conversation System Message**.
- A **Context Snapshot** stores one codec-encoded JSON value and, for removable dynamic sources, a pre-rendered removal message per stable **Context Source** key.
- Changes from multiple **Context Sources** admitted at one safe boundary combine into one **Mid-Conversation System Message**.
- Context changes are sampled and admitted lazily at a **Safe Provider-Turn Boundary**, never pushed asynchronously when their source changes.
- At a **Safe Provider-Turn Boundary**, newly promoted user input or settled tool results precede any combined **Mid-Conversation System Message**.
- An **Admitted Prompt** is replayable pending input, not yet model-visible **Session History**.
- **Prompt Promotion** atomically consumes the pending inbox entry and appends its model-visible user message.
- Steering prompts promote at the next **Safe Provider-Turn Boundary** while the current **Session Drain** still requires continuation. Promoting any newly admitted user input resets the selected agent's provider-turn allowance; multiple prompts promoted at one boundary reset it once.
- A queued prompt does not promote while the current **Session Drain** requires continuation. The runner promotes one queued prompt when the Session would otherwise become idle, then reevaluates continuation before promoting another.
- A **Session Drain** is process-local coordination rather than a durable domain entity. Durable recovery must reason from prompts, projected history, provider attempts, and tool state rather than inventing an enclosing execution identity.
- The first provider turn renders the latest complete **Baseline System Context** and initializes its **Context Snapshot** without emitting a redundant **Mid-Conversation System Message**; unavailable initial context blocks the turn instead of persisting an incomplete baseline.
- Initial **System Context** preparation precedes the first durable input promotion so an unavailable baseline leaves that input pending and retryable; ordinary reconciliation remains after promotion.
- Compaction starts a new **Context Epoch** with a freshly rendered **Baseline System Context** and **Context Snapshot**; prior **Mid-Conversation System Messages** remain durable audit history but leave projected model history.
- A newly registered core or plugin-defined **Context Source** absent from the current snapshot emits its baseline rendering once at the next **Safe Provider-Turn Boundary**.
- **Context Source** keys are stable and namespaced; duplicate keys fail composition. `SystemContext.combine(...)` preserves caller order; the **System Context Registry** evaluates producers concurrently and combines them in stable contribution-key order so rendered context remains deterministic.
- Each **Context Source** loader returns one coherent typed value. `SystemContext.make(...)` hides that value type so differently typed sources compose uniformly. Its codec compares and stores that value; its pure renderers produce model-visible baseline, update, and removal text only when needed.
- `SystemContext.initialize(...)` observes a composed **System Context** once and produces a fresh **Baseline System Context** with its **Context Snapshot**.
- `SystemContext.reconcile(...)` observes a composed **System Context** once and returns exactly one next action: unchanged, updated, replacement ready, or replacement blocked.
- `SystemContext.replace(...)` renders a fresh generation after completed compaction or another baseline-replacing transition; it reports replacement blocked while previously admitted context is unavailable.
- **Unavailable Context** uses stale-while-revalidate semantics and is distinct from a successfully loaded absence, which may emit removal text.
- Ordinary **Context Source** loaders return values directly; loaders that intentionally use stale-while-revalidate may explicitly return **Unavailable Context**.
- Nested project instruction discovery after successful reads remains a follow-up; when implemented, discovered instructions must be admitted durably at the next **Safe Provider-Turn Boundary**.
- Location-scoped services naturally re-resolve effective context when a moved session next runs in its destination location.
- Moving a Session clears its active **Context Epoch**, so the destination must initialize a complete baseline before another prompt can promote.
- Instruction discovery, source identity, persistence, and file loading belong to the instruction service; the **System Context** abstraction only composes effectful producers and renders loaded values.
- The first instruction-service slice observes global and upward project `AGENTS.md` files as one ordered aggregate **Context Source** at each **Safe Provider-Turn Boundary**.
- Built-in and instruction context producers register through the **System Context Registry** with stable contribution keys. Plugin-defined context registration and hot-reload lifecycle remain a follow-up built on the same scoped registry seam.
- Selected-agent available-skill guidance is a **Context Source** composed with Location-wide registry sources immediately before Context Epoch admission. It lists only names and descriptions permitted for that agent; skill bodies and locations are exposed only through the permission-checked `skill` tool.
- The selected agent and model are sampled when a provider turn starts. Changes admitted after that boundary apply to the next provider turn and do not restart the current turn.
- Selected-agent available-skill guidance remains a **Context Source**. An agent switch that changes that guidance produces a **Mid-Conversation System Message** while preserving the current baseline.
- Local tool authorization and pending permission requests retain the effective agent of the provider turn that issued the call; a later agent switch cannot change that call's policy.
- Context source changes never wake idle sessions; the next naturally scheduled **Safe Provider-Turn Boundary** loads and compares current values lazily.
- Once admitted, a **Mid-Conversation System Message** remains durable even if the following provider attempt fails and is replayed unchanged on retry.
- **Mid-Conversation System Messages** remain durable Session-message history; normal user-facing transcript surfaces may hide them.
- The date **Context Source** initially preserves host-local calendar-date behavior; a configured user timezone may replace that default later.
- A **Context Epoch** begins with one immutable **Baseline System Context**.
- A **Baseline System Context** is stored durably and reused verbatim across process restarts within its **Context Epoch**.
- A **Baseline System Context** durably preserves the exact joined text used for the active provider-cache prefix.
- Completed compaction starts a new **Context Epoch** on the next provider attempt, folding the current complete **System Context** into a fresh baseline and removing earlier **Mid-Conversation System Messages** from active model history.
- A model/provider switch preserves the current **Context Epoch** and chronological conversation history; the new selection applies to the next provider turn.
- The **PTY Environment** is a server concern rather than a Core PTY concern. PTY creation merges caller values, then the host overlay, then Core-forced terminal invariants such as `TERM` and `OPENCODE_TERMINAL`.
- A **PTY Environment** adapter observes plugins in the request Location while passing the resolved PTY working directory to the hook; standalone servers use an empty adapter.
- A **Mid-Conversation System Message** lowers to the provider's native chronological instruction role when supported and to a wrapped chronological fallback otherwise.
- When the effective aggregate instruction set changes, its **Mid-Conversation System Message** includes the complete current ordered set and supersedes the prior aggregate value; when no ambient instructions remain, the message states that previously loaded instructions no longer apply.
- Ambient project instruction discovery honors `OPENCODE_DISABLE_PROJECT_CONFIG`; global instructions remain eligible.
- Oversized textual **Model Tool Output** retains a bounded preview in Session history while its complete text moves to managed tool-output storage. Arbitrary structured-result size is a separate concern.
- One tool settlement receives one aggregate textual limit, using the configured maximum lines or UTF-8 bytes, whichever is reached first. The limit is provider-independent; token pressure belongs to context assembly and compaction.
- Generic truncation preserves the beginning and end of textual output. Tools may apply a more meaningful strategy before the Tool Registry enforces the final limit.
- A truncated **Model Tool Output** identifies its complete text both in the bounded model-visible preview and as a typed managed output path. Managed output paths do not modify the tool's validated structured result.
- A **Managed Tool Output File** is temporary and may expire after its retention period. The bounded **Model Tool Output**, not the file, is the durable replayable record.
- Failure to retain a **Managed Tool Output File** does not change a successful tool operation into a failed one. The Session records an explicitly lossy bounded output without a path, while operators receive diagnostics for the storage failure.
- Once a tool operation succeeds, bounding its **Model Tool Output** and publishing its one durable settlement form an interruption-safe completion region. Raw oversized success is never published before a later correction.
- When a structured-only result would exceed the **Model Tool Output** limit, its validated structured value remains unchanged for Session consumers while model replay uses a bounded textual JSON preview and optional managed output path.
- Existing tool-managed output paths survive generic bounding. A fallback file retains exactly the complete projected text received by the Tool Registry and never claims to reconstruct output already discarded by tool-specific shaping.
- **Managed Tool Output Files** use globally unique names in one shared flat directory. Their absolute paths are readable and searchable by ordinary tools; other absolute paths remain outside Location-scoped filesystem authority.
- Provider-executed tool results remain provider-native transcript facts outside generic Tool Registry bounding. Their context control requires provider-aware pruning or compaction because some providers require exact structured round-trip payloads.

## Example dialogue

> **Dev:** "The date changed while the session was active. Should the **Mid-Conversation System Message** say what the old date was?"
> **Domain expert:** "No. Emit the newly effective date so the agent can act on the current **System Context**."

## Flagged ambiguities

- Legacy `experimental.chat.system.transform` can mutate the assembled baseline system prompt arbitrarily, but V2 plugins do not yet expose an equivalent hook. Decide separately whether to port it, replace dynamic uses with plugin-defined **Context Sources**, or narrow its semantics.
