deepseek-harness/.agents/notes/implemented/feature/2026-08-02-win32-in-process-folder-dialog.md

Agent Note: Win32 folder picker moves to koffi in a child process

Status: implemented

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Problem

The Windows directory picker's primary tier was a spawned PowerShell script around WinForms FolderBrowserDialog: the modern dialog only where PowerShell 7 happens to be installed, a regression where PowerShell 6 resolves but has no WinForms (exit 1 is not ENOENT, so the 5.1 fallback never ran), a SetProcessDPIAware ceiling of system DPI, and a picker whose behavior depended on which shells a machine ships rather than on Windows itself.

Decision

packages/host/directory-picker-native now opens IFileOpenDialog (FOS_PICKFOLDERS | FOS_FORCEFILESYSTEM | FOS_NOCHANGEDIR) in-process through koffi — already a workspace dependency for the repo's other win32.ts surfaces — as the primary win32 tier. The COM conversation runs in a spawned child process so the modal Show never blocks the host event loop; the child posts its native thread id before blocking, and the driver services aborts by re-posting WM_CLOSE to that thread's windows (EnumThreadWindows), killing the child when the close budget is exhausted. The dialog is the child's first window, so Windows activates it without a foreground call. The child thread opts into the best thread DPI awareness the host accepts (SetThreadDpiAwarenessContext, cascading per-monitor-v2 → per-monitor → system-aware with the return value checked), a strict upgrade over the script's system-DPI ceiling; DPI stays a cosmetic best-effort — a host accepting none of them still gets the modern dialog rather than a downgrade. The module split keeps coverage honest on every host: win32-dialog-logic.ts (pure sequencing) and win32-dialog.ts (driver) test against fakes anywhere; win32-dialog-bindings.ts tests against a mocked koffi COM world (the dsh-session-persistence-jsonl technique); POSIX hosts run the real spawn plumbing to its koffi-load rejection; win32 hosts run a real open-and-abort-close smoke. The PowerShell chain that preceded this tier is gone (see the chain removal): the tier has no fallback.

Alternatives considered

• A prebuilt native helper (native/ family like @deepseek-ai/node-addon-landlock-run). Rejected: another npm package family, MSVC provisioning, and a Windows build/release lane — all to ship ~150 lines of C the repository cannot currently exercise on CI (no real-Windows lane); koffi delivers the same COM surface with zero new supply chain.
• An N-API in-process addon. Rejected for the same CI/toolchain reasons plus owned C++ for STA threading and message pumping that a child process + koffi express in TypeScript.
• Keep PowerShell primary and probe versions. Rejected: the picker stays hostage to shell packaging (6 vs 7, Store aliases, profiles), and 5.1's legacy dialog remains the floor wherever pwsh is absent; the fallback-trigger widening alone was accepted into the fallback tier instead.
• Blocking the main thread for the modal call. Rejected outright: the web host must keep serving RPC while the dialog is open.

Consequences

• Every Windows machine gets the modern dialog with the best DPI awareness it supports (per-monitor-v2 on 1703+), PowerShell installed or not.
• Real dialog rendering and the selection path stay a manual Windows check (the auto-close smoke proves open/abort/unwind).
• The COM vtable slots and GUIDs used are frozen Windows ABI (Vista); a koffi signature mistake risks a native access violation, contained to the dialog child process — the host Node process survives and the failure surfaces as-is (no fallback tier; see the chain removal). The mocked-koffi ABI pins and the real win32 smoke exist to catch such mistakes before shipping.
• The packaged-binary arm — the packaged executable spawning itself as the dialog entry — is not exercised by any automated test: the source plane and the built lib/worker.cjs under plain node are covered, and the packaged spawn remains deferred to the Windows CI roadmap.