deepseek-harness/docs/rfc/proposed/feature/2026-06-15-code-mode.md

# RFC: Code Mode — the model writes TypeScript against the tool registry

Status: proposed

## Problem

Today the agent loop advertises every registered tool to the model as a native JSON-schema function definition. `ToolRegistry` contributes its schemas to the system-prompt assembly, the assembly's `tools` land on the wire (and in the logged request header), the model invokes one `tool-call` block per step, and the loop dispatches each call through `ctx.tools.execute()` **sequentially** (parallel tool execution is an explicit open TODO in `dsh-tools` and [docs/architecture.md](../../../architecture.md)), with **every** intermediate `tool-result` re-entering the model's context on the next request.

For multi-step tool work this is token-heavy and serial. The model cannot compose tools — loop over a result set, branch on an intermediate value, fan out, post-process — without a full model round-trip per call, and each round-trip drags the entire intermediate result back into context whether the model needs it or not.

Cloudflare's [Code Mode](https://blog.cloudflare.com/code-mode/) proposes an alternative grounded in a simple observation: LLMs are better at writing code than at emitting tool calls, because they have seen millions of lines of real code and comparatively few contrived tool-calling traces. Instead of one tool call per step, the model writes a TypeScript program against a generated API over the tools, the program executes in a sandboxed runtime, and the model curates what comes back — only what it prints or returns — instead of every intermediate result.

An earlier draft of this RFC designed Code Mode as an add-on consumer plugin with zero core changes, deferring the execution substrate to a follow-up. Both constraints are dropped here, deliberately. First, the harness is pre-release and optimizes for the correct foundation over blast radius: tool presentation is the registry's own concern, and bolting a second presentation onto it from outside means transforming the registry's contribution after the fact — a waterfall listener whose correctness depends on listener ordering, which fights the [reconstructable-requests](../../implemented/architecture/2026-07-05-reconstructable-requests.md) design instead of riding it (that refactor removed request mutation from `agent/request`, the seam the old draft relied on). Second, the substrate question is answerable now: a Node `worker_threads` runtime gives real containment — separate isolate, empty environment, heap caps, and a `terminate()` that reliably stops a hot synchronous loop — where the old draft's `node:vm` stub had none of those, and it fits the harness's existing trust model (§Trust posture) without a hardening follow-up.

## Proposal

Three decisions, each elaborated in its own section below:

1. **Code Mode is a first-class presentation mode of `ToolRegistry`** (`dsh-tools`), selected by a validated `mode` config: `'native'` (today's behavior, the default), `'code'` (the wire carries exactly one tool, `run_code`, plus a generated SDK `.d.ts` in the system prompt), or `'both'` (native schemas *and* `run_code` + SDK). The registry's existing tool-schema provider contributes whatever the mode dictates, so the wire tool list is shaped at its source — no interception, no listener-ordering caveats — and the logged request header records it for free.
2. **Code execution is a capability seam** — a new group `packages/code-runtime/` with the interface package `@deepseek-ai/dsh-code-runtime` owning `ctx.codeRuntime` ([capability seams](../../implemented/architecture/2026-06-13-capability-seams.md); consumer = `dsh-tools`, with core-consumes-a-seam precedent in `agent-loop` → `dsh-llm`). The runtime knows nothing about tools: it is handed a program and named async bindings, runs the program, and reports `{ value, logs, error? }`. Language and substrate are backend properties, so a future Python or container backend is a new implementation package, not a redesign.
3. **The shipped implementation is `@deepseek-ai/dsh-code-runtime-worker`**: one fresh Node worker thread per run, executing the model's TypeScript after type-strip, with bindings bridged over the message port, an empty environment, configurable heap/output/time caps, and hard termination. Its trust posture is bash-equivalent by design — no unsafe-acknowledgement flags — because the harness already ships `dsh-bash-local`, which executes arbitrary model-written shell commands with strictly *more* ambient authority.

### The registry owns the mode

`ToolRegistry` gains a schemastery-validated config (`static Config`), its first: `mode: 'native' | 'code' | 'both'`, default `'native'`. A deployment flips it from `cordis.yml` (`tools: { mode: code }`) — no code edit, per the no-hardcoded-tunables convention.

**Wire tool list = the provider's contribution.** The registry already feeds the assembly through `ctx.systemPrompt.tools(() => this.schemas())`; the provider becomes mode-aware: `'native'` contributes all schemas (unchanged), `'code'` contributes only `run_code`'s schema, `'both'` contributes all schemas plus `run_code`. Because [`PromptAssembly.tools` is the single source the loop's request header snapshots](../../../../packages/core/system-prompt/src/index.ts), the collapse is automatically logged and reconstructable — model-visible ⟺ logged holds with zero new mechanism, and there is no seam left where another party could accidentally re-add tools (the `system-prompt/assemble` waterfall can still deliberately transform the assembly, as ever).

**Interaction with `toolOrder`, stated up front:** a configured `systemPrompt.toolOrder` naming native tools rejects every assembly under `mode: 'code'` (those names are no longer contributed), by the existing fail-loud rule for unlisted names. This is correct behavior, not a bug: a deployment switching modes updates its order config or drops it.

**The SDK prompt section.** Under `'code'` and `'both'` the registry registers one lazy prompt section (`tools:sdk`, in the 100–199 tool-guidance order band) whose thunk regenerates, at each assembly, a TypeScript declaration of every registered tool except `run_code` itself, plus fixed usage instructions. The thunk reads the live store and emits tools in lexicographic name order, so its output is deterministic and stable across steps — an unchanged tool set produces byte-identical text (prefix-cache-friendly; a mid-session registration surfaces as one logged header delta, exactly like a native-mode tool change).

**Codegen.** A pure `jsonSchemaToTs(schema)` module inside `dsh-tools` (sibling of `json-schema.ts` — `schemas()` and the SDK are two projections of the same store) maps the JSON-Schema subset the `defineTool` DSL emits (object/string/number/boolean/array, `properties`, `required`, string `enum` → literal union, nested objects, array `items`, `description` → JSDoc) to a TS type literal. It is **total**: any construct outside that subset (`$ref`, `oneOf`/`anyOf`, `integer`, future MCP shapes, …) degrades to `unknown` without throwing. Because `ToolSchema.name` is an arbitrary string, the SDK is declared as one object constant — `declare const tools: { "some-mcp-tool"(args: …): Promise<string>; bash(args: …): Promise<string>; … }` — quoted keys make every name reachable with no sanitization or alias-collision logic. Typing is advisory (the runtime executes type-stripped JS); the instructions say so.

### The run_code tool and the dispatch bridge

Under `'code'` and `'both'` the registry registers `run_code` in itself as an ordinary tool — one required parameter `{ code: string }` — so the unchanged loop dispatches it through the normal pipeline and `tools/pre-execute` / `tools/post-execute` gate it like any other call (a permission plugin can inspect the program text before it runs). Its `execute(args, exec)`:

1. **Builds the bindings**: for every registered tool except `run_code`, an async function that (a) checks `exec.signal?.aborted` before and after (throwing stops the program — necessary because `ctx.tools.execute()` converts errors to `isError` data), (b) awaits its turn on the **per-run serialization queue** (below), (c) calls `this.execute({ callId, name, arguments, agent: exec.agent, signal: exec.signal })` with a deterministic sub-id `` CallId(`${exec.callId}:code:${n}`) ``, (d) appends a `tool/code-dispatch` session event, and (e) maps the result: success → the text-block contents joined as a `string` (non-text blocks become placeholders, an MVP limitation), `isError` → **the binding rejects** with an `Error` carrying the result text. Rejection is the deliberate model-facing contract — real code signals failure by throwing, `try/catch` and `Promise.all` short-circuiting behave as every model has seen them behave — where the old draft's `{ output, isError }` envelope made error handling a bespoke convention.
2. **Runs the program**: `ctx.codeRuntime.run({ program: args.code, bindings: [{ global: 'tools', functions }], signal: exec.signal })`.
3. **Surfaces the outcome**: a successful run returns one text block — the captured console/stdout output followed by the rendered return value (if any) — plus a `meta` payload (capped logs, dispatch count) for presentation. A run with `result.error` throws a `CodeRunFailedError extends HarnessError` (`code: 'CODE_RUN_FAILED'`, message = the error kind and text plus captured logs so the model can self-correct); the registry's existing catch turns it into a structured `isError` result.

**Concurrency: serialized, enforced by the binding.** The bindings are async, so a model writing `Promise.all([tools.a(…), tools.b(…)])` starts both immediately — concurrent dispatch would be the *default*, while the tool contract still carries no concurrency-safety metadata (the open parallel-execution TODO). Each `run_code` invocation therefore owns a dispatch queue and every binding call chains onto it, so even `Promise.all` executes the underlying `ctx.tools.execute()` calls one at a time in submission order; when the run settles, queued-but-unstarted dispatches are abandoned. Lifting this per-tool once tools can declare themselves concurrency-safe is deferred work, same as before.

**Presentation.** `run_code`'s render intent is decided here per the [render-intent RFC](../../implemented/architecture/2026-07-02-tool-render-intent-union.md): `presentCall` → a `generic` card, `kind: 'execute'`, title `Run code`, `rawInput` = the program text; `presentResult` → a `generic` card whose content is the captured output (from `meta`). Not a `terminal` card: that card's semantics are "a shell command in a working directory", which a program is not.

### Observability: `tool/code-dispatch`

Each sub-dispatch appends one session event, declared by `dsh-tools` via `SessionEventMap` declaration merging (the map is merge-extensible for exactly this): `tool/code-dispatch` with `{ parentCallId, subCallId, name, arguments, isError, resultSummary }`. It is log-only — `deriveEventMessage()` ignores unknown event types by design, so sub-calls never re-enter model context — but persistence and UIs get every call. A `run_code` execution arriving without `exec.agent` (the loop always supplies it; direct programmatic calls may not) still runs and simply skips event logging, exactly as the `ToolExecution` contract allows.

### The code-runtime seam

`packages/code-runtime/code-runtime/` — `@deepseek-ai/dsh-code-runtime`, depending only on `cordis`. An abstract `CodeRuntime extends Service` (`super(ctx, 'codeRuntime')`) plus the vocabulary:

- `CodeRunRequest = { program: string; bindings: CodeBindingNamespace[]; signal?: AbortSignal }`
- `CodeBindingNamespace = { global: string; functions: Record<string, (args: unknown) => Promise<unknown>> }` — the runtime exposes each namespace as a global object of async functions inside the program; binding arguments and resolutions must be structured-cloneable (a runtime may cross a serialization boundary; ours does).
- `CodeRunResult = { value?: unknown; logs: CodeLogEntry[]; error?: CodeRunFailure }` — an error is a field on a resolved result, never a rejection of `run()`.
- `CodeLogEntry = { source: 'console' | 'stdout' | 'stderr'; level?: 'log' | 'info' | 'warn' | 'error' | 'debug'; text: string }`
- `CodeRunFailure = { kind: 'exception' | 'timeout' | 'abort' | 'worker-exit'; message: string }` — orthogonal outcomes reported independently per [defensive patterns](../../../defensive-patterns.md); a timed-out run is not an exception, an abort is not a timeout.
- Two readonly backend descriptors, informational not gating: `language` (what the program must be written in — `'typescript'` for the shipped backend; a Python backend would say so, and pair with its own SDK generator on the presentation side) and `isolation` (`'worker-thread'` for the shipped backend; `'process'`, `'container'`, … for future ones). `dsh-tools` requires `language === 'typescript'` in the MVP — its codegen emits TS — and fails the assembly loudly otherwise, the same misconfiguration idiom as `toolOrder` violations (as when `mode` is non-native with no `ctx.codeRuntime` loaded at all).

Per explicit-over-implicit at seams, the request spells out everything the runtime acts on; defaulting (timeouts, caps) is the implementation's validated config, never a hidden `??` inside `run()`. Consumption uses the loop's established optional-backend idiom: cordis has no optional injection — every `inject` entry gates activation — so a static `inject` on the registry would hold `ctx.tools` (and every tool plugin behind it) hostage to a code runtime existing even under `mode: 'native'`; instead the registry reads `ctx.get('codeRuntime')` at use time, exactly as `agent-loop` consumes `sessionPersistence`, with absence failing loud in the provider thunk as above. The seam split is justified by real planned divergence on both axes — substrate (worker now; container/microVM later) and language (the Python/AssemblyScript direction sketched in the earlier draft survives as future work) — not by speculation: `dsh-tools` consumes the interface today and tests against a trivial in-repo fake, exactly the interface/implementation/consumer shape of the bash template.

### The worker-thread runtime

`packages/code-runtime/code-runtime-worker/` — `@deepseek-ai/dsh-code-runtime-worker`. Per `run()`:

1. **Type-strip host-side** with Node's built-in `stripTypeScriptTypes` (`node:module`; the repo floor is node ≥ 24, and the API is position-preserving, so runtime error line numbers match the model's source). Strip-only mode rejects non-erasable syntax (`enum`, namespaces) — that rejection returns as `error.kind: 'exception'` with Node's message, the SDK instructions say "erasable TypeScript only", and the model self-corrects like any other program error. A syntax-level failure never spawns a worker.
2. **Spawn one fresh `Worker` per run** from the package's own bootstrap module: `env: {}` (truly empty — stronger than the scrubbed-env rule for spawned commands), `resourceLimits` from config, `stdout`/`stderr` captured into `logs` rather than inherited. No pooling and no cross-run state: a program's world dies with its worker, which keeps runs reconstructable from the log alone and makes state bleed unrepresentable.
3. **Execute** in the bootstrap: the stripped program becomes the body of an `AsyncFunction` whose parameters are the binding globals and a capturing `console` shim, so top-level `await` and `return` work and the program's completion value is the run's `value` (structured-cloneable values cross as-is; anything else is replaced by its `util.inspect` rendering, documented).
4. **Bridge bindings over the message port**: each binding function in the worker posts `{ id, global, name, args }` and awaits the reply; the host validates the name against the request's bindings, invokes, and replies `{ id, ok, value }` or `{ id, ok: false, message }` (a host-side binding rejection becomes a program-side rejection). Unknown names, duplicate ids, and post-settlement messages are rejected or ignored — the port protocol assumes a hostile peer, because the peer runs model code.
5. **Enforce caps**: the compute-time budget (`timeoutMs`) ticks only while no binding call is pending — it bounds runaway worker compute, not tool latency — and expiry, `signal` abort, and run completion all funnel into `worker.terminate()`, which ends hot synchronous loops too (measured; this was `node:vm`'s unfixable gap). Heap overflow surfaces as the worker's OOM exit → `error.kind: 'worker-exit'`. Log and value sizes are capped by config (`maxLogBytes`, `maxValueBytes`), truncation marked in-band. All caps are validated config fields with defaults (`timeoutMs: 60_000`, `maxLogBytes: 65_536`, `maxValueBytes: 32_768`, `maxOldGenerationSizeMb: 512`), changeable from `cordis.yml`.
6. **Dispose to quiescence**: the service's own disposal terminates in-flight workers and *awaits* their exits before resolving, per [defensive patterns](../../../defensive-patterns.md).

### Trust posture

The worker runtime is **containment, not a security boundary**, and the RFC says so without ceremony. Model code in the worker can reach Node globals — `fetch`, `process` (with an empty env) — so a deliberately adversarial program has ambient authority comparable to what the harness's own `bash` tool already grants every model turn: `dsh-bash-local` runs arbitrary model-written commands with the host filesystem, network, and a scrubbed-but-populated environment. Code Mode is gated where bash is gated — `tools/pre-execute`, where permission/sandbox plugins veto or approve the program before it runs — and adds containment bash does not have: empty env, heap caps, hard termination, a separate isolate. The earlier draft's two-flag unsafe ceremony (`{ unsafe: true }` constructor + `allowUnsafeRuntime`) existed for a `node:vm` stub with *no* containment and is dropped with it; demanding scarier flags for the better-contained executor than for bash would be posture theater. A deployment that needs a hard boundary (untrusted multi-tenant input) needs it for bash too; that is a future `isolation: 'container'` backend, and the `isolation` descriptor exists so such a deployment can tell backends apart.

### What the model sees

The `tools:sdk` section carries the `.d.ts` plus fixed instructions: the program is the body of an async TypeScript function (erasable syntax only — no `enum`/namespaces; type annotations are advisory); call tools as `await tools.name(args)` (quoted access for exotic names); a failed tool call **rejects** with an `Error` carrying the tool's error text — catch it to handle and continue; calls run **sequentially** even under `Promise.all`; emit results via `return` and/or `console.log`, and only that curated output returns to the context — intermediate tool results never do. That last line is the payoff the whole design serves: output-side context cost becomes the model's own editorial decision. On the input side the `.d.ts` is not free — for a large tool surface it can rival the native JSON schemas it replaces (and `'both'` pays for the two side by side) — but it is prefix-stable, so provider prefix caching amortizes it; the win is workload-dependent and the RFC claims no more.

## Plan

Four stacked PRs, each gates-green (`typecheck`, `lint`, `test:coverage`, `test:snapshot`, `doc-sync`, `verify-module-graph`, `build`, `hygiene`) with docs updated in the same change:

1. **This RFC revision** (docs-only): the file rewritten as above (renamed `2026-06-15-code-mode.md`, same first-proposed date), regenerated RFC index.
2. **`dsh-code-runtime`** (interface package): the group `packages/code-runtime/`, abstract `CodeRuntime`, vocabulary types, ctx-key declaration, group README + package README + catalog updates. Unit tier: HMR safety (dispose removes `ctx.codeRuntime`), contract docs. This package has no behavior to snapshot or e2e; its coverage story is unit-only by design.
3. **`dsh-code-runtime-worker`**: the implementation above. Unit tier (real workers, no mocks — they are cheap and local): output/value capture, log source attribution, error kinds (exception incl. non-erasable syntax, timeout vs abort vs worker-exit under OOM), compute-time-only timeout (a slow binding does not expire the run), binding bridge hostility cases (unknown name, duplicate id, post-settlement message), structured-clone fallback, cap truncation, `env` emptiness verified from inside the program, dispose-awaits-exit. A real-load-path test runs the built package (`lib/`) so the worker entry resolves both unbuilt (tsx) and built — the published-bin guard from [docs/testing.md](../../../testing.md).
4. **Native code mode in `dsh-tools`** + the end-to-end surface: mode config, provider switch, `tools:sdk` section, `jsonSchemaToTs`, `run_code` + dispatch bridge + serialization queue, `tool/code-dispatch` event; [docs/architecture.md](../../../architecture.md) (tool-pipeline section + `ctx.codeRuntime` service row) and the [adding-a-tool cookbook](../../../cookbook/adding-a-tool.md) cross-reference updated in the same change; an `examples/` leaf + `demo:code` script wiring the worker runtime with `mode: 'code'`; move this RFC to `implemented/`. Coverage named per tier now, per the plan-time rule: **unit** — codegen table (DSL subset, quoted names, `unknown` degradation, determinism), provider contribution per mode, `toolOrder × mode` rejection, missing-runtime/wrong-language loud failures, serialization non-overlap (a probe tool records enter/exit under `Promise.all`), abort stops the queue, binding rejection on `isError`, `CodeRunFailedError` → structured `isError`, event payloads, `deriveMessages()` ignores the event, HMR safety (mode flip via config reload removes tool + section); **e2e (with-key, self-skips)** — a real model, `mode: 'code'`, a task requiring two tool calls and curation, asserting the wire tool list was exactly `run_code` and the transcript's dispatch events; **snapshot (keyless replay)** — goldens for a `run_code` turn in `'code'` and `'both'`, pinning the SDK section text, the collapsed header tools, dispatch events, and the result card.

The four PRs land in order (each on the previous); per stacked-review practice, review fixes land on the PR that introduced them and merge down.

## Alternatives considered

**An add-on consumer plugin, zero core changes (the previous draft of this RFC).** Rejected on both halves. The wire-collapse half aged out from under it: it targeted the `agent/request` waterfall, which [reconstructable requests](../../implemented/architecture/2026-07-05-reconstructable-requests.md) has since re-typed to call-config-only, and the surviving alternative — transforming the assembly a waterfall listener receives — is strictly worse than contributing the right list in the first place (transformation must undo `toolOrder` canonicalization it cannot see the config for, and its correctness depends on where it sits in a listener chain). The deeper reason is ownership: which tools the model is offered, in which representation, is the registry's single concern — `schemas()` for function calling and the SDK for Code Mode are two projections of one store, and splitting the second projection into a satellite package would preserve a boundary the domain does not have.

**`node:vm` as the reference runtime, hardening deferred (also the previous draft).** Rejected: `node:vm` is not isolation (prototype-chain escapes reach the host realm), cannot interrupt a hot loop, and forced the draft into a two-flag unsafe ceremony plus a mandatory follow-up RFC. The worker thread delivers the missing properties now — separate isolate, empty env, `resourceLimits`, reliable `terminate()` (all verified by probe before this revision) — at bash-equivalent trust, so the reference implementation and the production one are the same package and the ceremony dissolves.

**Result elision / summarization over native tool-calling.** Addresses only the context-bloat half of the problem: trimming old `tool-result`s (now cheap to add as a logged surface replace, per the reconstructable-requests consequences) still pays one model round-trip per call and cannot express loops, branches, or joins. Complementary, not competing; it can layer under Code Mode for residual native calls.

**Parallel native dispatch in the loop.** The other answer to round-trip cost; still valid future work (the open TODO), still blocked on concurrency-safety metadata, and still no composition — it parallelizes calls the model already decided on in one step. Code Mode's serialized-queue decision keeps the two compatible: when the metadata lands, both native parallel dispatch and per-tool binding parallelism unlock together.

**Always-exclusive (Cloudflare-faithful, no mode).** Rejected for this SDK's primary consumer: a coding agent's bread-and-butter single calls (`bash`, `read`, `edit`) are already ideal as native calls, and forcing every edit through a program taxes the common case. The mode config keeps the faithful form (`'code'`) one line away without imposing it.

**Per-tool visibility tiers (this tool native, that tool code-only).** Deferred again, knowingly: it needs per-tool metadata and a presentation split that `'native' | 'code' | 'both'` does not, and every learning it depends on (how models actually split usage under `'both'`) arrives only after this ships.

**Sanitized identifier aliases in the SDK** (`my-tool` → `my_tool`, Cloudflare's approach). Rejected: quoted keys on a `declare const` make every name reachable with zero alias-collision logic; models handle `tools["my-tool"](…)` fine.

**A REPL-style persistent kernel** (state survives across `run_code` calls). Rejected for the MVP: cross-call state would be invisible to the session log, breaking the reconstructability guarantee that every request is a pure function of the log; fresh-per-run keeps it. A kernel-style backend remains expressible behind the seam later, with its own logging story.

## Acceptance criteria

- `mode: 'native'` (and unset) is byte-for-byte today's behavior: same assemblies, same headers, same snapshots.
- Under `mode: 'code'`, the assembled tool list (and thus the logged `request/header`) is exactly `[run_code]`; under `'both'`, every native schema plus `run_code`; the `tools:sdk` section is present in both, absent under `'native'`, and its text is deterministic for a fixed tool set (byte-identical across consecutive assemblies).
- The generated `.d.ts` covers every registered tool except `run_code`, non-identifier names via quoted keys, unsupported schema constructs as `unknown`, without codegen ever throwing.
- A program calling two tools returns only its curated output; each sub-call appears as a `tool/code-dispatch` event ordered by log `seq`, flows through `tools/pre-execute`/`post-execute` (a deny reaches the program as a binding rejection), and never enters derived messages.
- `Promise.all` over three bindings produces non-overlapping `ctx.tools.execute()` intervals (probe-tool assertion); aborting mid-program stops the worker and dispatches nothing further.
- Worker runtime: a hot `for(;;){}` run ends at the compute-time budget with `error.kind: 'timeout'`; a pending binding call does not consume that budget; OOM under `resourceLimits` yields `kind: 'worker-exit'` with the host process healthy; `process.env` inside a program is empty; non-erasable syntax yields `kind: 'exception'` without a worker spawn; disposal awaits worker exit.
- Misconfiguration is loud before any model request: non-native mode with no `ctx.codeRuntime`, a runtime whose `language ≠ 'typescript'`, and `toolOrder` naming a non-contributed tool all reject the assembly with actionable messages.
- The demo runs against the real API via `demo:code`; the snapshot goldens replay keylessly; all repo gates pass on every PR of the stack.

## Risks

**The worker is not a hard security boundary.** Deliberate and documented (§Trust posture): posture equals the existing bash tool, containment exceeds it, gating uses the same seams. Deployments needing more need a future `isolation: 'container'` backend — tracked as the seam's designed extension, not a TODO on this design.

**`stripTypeScriptTypes` is marked experimental.** It is also what Node itself runs `.ts` files with on this repo's node floor. Mitigations: the runtime's unit suite pins the behaviors relied on (position preservation, erasable-only rejection message shape loosely), the call sits behind one private function, and `amaro`/`sucrase` are drop-in replacements if the API shifts. The erasable-only subset is a model-facing contract line, and the error path is a working feedback loop, not a dead end.

**Prompt cost of the SDK, especially under `'both'`.** The `.d.ts` can rival the native schemas it complements; `'both'` carries two representations. Prefix stability + provider caching amortize per-session cost; the mode is per-deployment; the RFC makes no unconditional-savings claim. Measured guidance (when to prefer which mode) is explicitly post-ship learning.

**Registry scope growth.** `dsh-tools` absorbs codegen, a tool, a bridge, and an event. Contained by module boundaries inside the package (`ts-types.ts`, `code-mode.ts` beside `schema.ts`/`json-schema.ts`/`presentation.ts`) and by the seam: everything substrate-shaped lives behind `ctx.codeRuntime`.

**Structured-clone limits at the binding boundary.** Tool bindings pass JSON-shaped arguments and return strings in the MVP, comfortably cloneable; the seam contract states the constraint so a future binding producer cannot discover it in production. Non-text sub-result content is reduced to placeholders — a known MVP limitation, recorded in the SDK instructions.

**Serialized-only sub-dispatch.** `Promise.all` gains no wall-clock parallelism yet, only fewer round-trips; models may over-expect. The instructions state it; lifting it is tied to the same concurrency-safety metadata the native parallel-dispatch TODO needs.

**Timer-pause bookkeeping.** Compute-time-only budgeting adds a small state machine (pause on RPC out, resume on reply) whose bugs would misattribute time. It is unit-tested from both sides (slow binding ≠ timeout; hot loop = timeout) and is still simpler than the alternative — one budget that spuriously kills programs for waiting on a slow tool.