The win32 tier is exactly the koffi IFileOpenDialog child process; any failure surfaces as-is. The pwsh -> Windows PowerShell 5.1 cascade, the shared WinForms script, and the triple-miss AggregateError are deleted: koffi is a packaged dependency whose availability the install guarantees, so no mechanism fallback exists (the browse backend remains the fallback at the composition level). The pwsh-first DPI picker-fix note is consolidated into a new simplification note recording the reversal.
The koffi redesign moved the dialog from a spawned child process (which
inherits a foreground-activation right from the spawning app) onto a worker
thread of the same process, so Windows shows the dialog without activating
it — it opens behind the app with a taskbar flash. The app has no native
HWND to hand the seam, so raise from the driver: on the 'showing' notice
(the worker posts it right before Show, before the dialog window exists),
attach this thread's input queue to the dialog thread's, call
SetForegroundWindow on its top-level window, and detach — retried on the
close cadence until the window appears, stopped on settle/abort/success,
never blocking the pick. Injectable seam mirrors closeThreadWindows; driver
tests pin the raise and its retry; the in-process note records the
mechanism (both languages, pairing re-recorded).
The round-four review's v6 pass found three factual gaps and the v5 pass two
nits. Correct them before merge:
- The in-process note claimed a koffi signature mistake is 'contained to
the worker thread' — worker_threads share the process, so a native access
violation takes down the whole Node process with no PowerShell fallback.
State the real blast radius and record the deferred pkg-VFS worker-spawn
arm in Consequences (both languages, pairing re-recorded).
- The 2026-07-27 picker note claimed unconditional 'per-monitor-v2 DPI';
PMv2-less hosts (Server 2016 / Win10 1607) cascade to per-monitor or
system-aware. Say 'the best thread DPI awareness the host accepts'
(both languages, pairing re-recorded).
- built-worker.e2e.ts was not in any keyless gate (vitest.e2e config is
not part of the default unit run and builtBinSmokeGate's explicit list
missed it), so lib/worker.cjs load regressions passed keyless CI. Add it
to builtBinSmokeGate alongside the workflow-workerthread sibling.
- Remove the dead trailing 'void bindings' in win32-dialog-logic.spec.ts
and give native-picker.spec.ts the sibling module header it lacked.
- setThreadDpiAwareness checks SetThreadDpiAwarenessContext's return value
and cascades per-monitor-v2 -> per-monitor -> system-aware; DPI stays a
deliberate cosmetic best-effort - a host accepting none (or lacking the
API, pre-1607) still gets the modern dialog instead of a downgrade to the
legacy fallback chain over a cosmetic concern.
- The mocked-koffi world now uses a distinctive 4-byte pointer width and
rejects mis-sized out-buffers and mis-divided vtable offsets, so a
regression to hardcoded 8s fails the suite (the ia32 bug class).
- A keyless built-worker e2e guard loads lib/worker.cjs under plain
worker_threads on POSIX (the workflow-workerthread shape).
- The 'loaded lazily' module claims are reworded to attribute laziness to
the dynamic import('koffi') calls, and the discarded close-attempt
rejection is named at its catch.
The modern IFileOpenDialog becomes the primary win32 tier: a koffi-driven
COM conversation on a worker_threads worker (the modal Show never blocks
the host event loop), per-monitor-v2 DPI via SetThreadDpiAwarenessContext,
and abort service by re-posting WM_CLOSE to the dialog thread's windows,
with terminate+unref as the last resort (Node cannot interrupt a thread
blocked in native code, and such a worker must never hold the process open).
The PowerShell chain stays as the fallback tier with its trigger widened
from ENOENT to any pwsh failure, closing the review-flagged PowerShell 6
regression (no WinForms: exit 1, not ENOENT, so 5.1 never ran).
Layering keeps per-file coverage honest on every host: pure sequencing and
the driver test against fakes anywhere; the bindings run against a mocked
koffi COM world (the session-persistence-jsonl technique); POSIX hosts
drive the real spawn plumbing to its koffi-load rejection; win32 hosts run
a real open-and-abort-close smoke. The smoke joins processBoundTests: a
worker blocked in a native modal wedges the threads pool's teardown, while
a fork contains it. The worker bundles as its own CJS tsdown entry
(workflow-workerthread's pattern; no TLA), and the host module is imported
statically so the node-half bundle stays chunk-free.
Built-plane and real-COM behavior verified on native Windows: standalone
probes for the source worker, the built CJS worker, and the driver's abort
path all open and close the real dialog.
Agent Notes: new implemented/feature/2026-08-02-win32-in-process-folder-dialog
(bilingual) owns the decision; the DPI note is re-scoped to the fallback tier
it now describes and its AutoUpgradeEnabled attribution corrected (.NET Core
3.0 rewrote FolderBrowserDialog; the opt-out arrived in .NET 6).
Hypatia May