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magi/
proc.rs

1//! Spawning child processes without putting a window on the operator's screen.
2//!
3//! Every external program magi runs - the agent CLIs, `git`, `gh`, the
4//! configured verification commands - is a console application. What happens
5//! when one is spawned depends on whether the *parent* has a console, and
6//! magi has two kinds of parent:
7//!
8//! - `magi run` / `magi review` in a terminal. The child inherits that
9//!   console, writes nowhere visible because its pipes are redirected, and
10//!   nothing appears.
11//! - `magi web`, which serves the deck. Its successor is spawned
12//!   `DETACHED_PROCESS` on purpose (see [`crate::web`]): it has to outlive the
13//!   process that started it and must not hold a pipe a terminal is waiting
14//!   on. **That process has no console at all**, so Windows allocates a brand
15//!   new one for each console child - and draws it. An implement wave is
16//!   three agents, so three black windows opened over whatever the operator
17//!   was doing, in front of the browser they were reading the deck in.
18//!
19//! `CREATE_NO_WINDOW` is the answer to exactly that: the child still gets a
20//! console for its standard handles, and that console is never shown. It is
21//! not the same as `DETACHED_PROCESS`, which gives the child no console and
22//! would make a grandchild pop a window of its own for the same reason.
23//!
24//! Nothing here is conditional on how magi was started. A hidden console is
25//! correct in a terminal too: the pipes are redirected either way, so there
26//! was never anything to look at.
27
28/// `CREATE_NO_WINDOW` - run the child's console, but never draw it.
29///
30/// From `processthreadsapi.h`. Spelled out rather than pulled in from a
31/// bindings crate: it is one number that has been stable since Windows 2000,
32/// and the alternative is a dependency for it.
33#[cfg(windows)]
34const CREATE_NO_WINDOW: u32 = 0x0800_0000;
35
36/// Spawn without a visible console window.
37///
38/// Implemented for both `Command` types magi uses - `std` for the few
39/// synchronous calls, `tokio` for everything else - so a call site does not
40/// have to know which one it is holding, and so no call site has to repeat a
41/// `#[cfg(windows)]` block to get it.
42///
43/// A no-op off Windows, where a spawned process has no window to begin with.
44pub trait Quiet {
45    /// Apply it, and hand the command back for further building.
46    fn quiet(&mut self) -> &mut Self;
47}
48
49impl Quiet for std::process::Command {
50    fn quiet(&mut self) -> &mut Self {
51        #[cfg(windows)]
52        {
53            use std::os::windows::process::CommandExt as _;
54            self.creation_flags(CREATE_NO_WINDOW);
55        }
56        self
57    }
58}
59
60impl Quiet for tokio::process::Command {
61    fn quiet(&mut self) -> &mut Self {
62        #[cfg(windows)]
63        {
64            self.creation_flags(CREATE_NO_WINDOW);
65        }
66        self
67    }
68}
69
70/// Best-effort liveness check for a process id, with no dependency beyond
71/// what the platform ships.
72///
73/// There is no portable way in the standard library to ask "is this pid
74/// alive" - no `libc`, no `sysinfo`, nothing magi already depends on binds
75/// the signals API - so this shells out to whatever each platform already
76/// provides: `kill -0` on Unix, `tasklist` on Windows. Both are read-only:
77/// `kill -0` sends no signal, it only checks whether one *could* be sent.
78///
79/// Every uncertain outcome reads as alive, on purpose. This exists so
80/// [`crate::daemon::sweep_stale_claims`] can reclaim a lock faster than its
81/// age-based fallback when the owning process is verifiably gone; the risk
82/// on the other side - reclaiming a lock a live process still holds - lets a
83/// second daemon start a second run on the same task, which costs far more
84/// than leaving one lock alone a little longer. So a helper program that is
85/// missing, output that cannot be parsed, or a permission error that merely
86/// proves the pid exists under another account, all count as "alive" rather
87/// than as license to reclaim.
88#[must_use]
89pub fn pid_alive(pid: u32) -> bool {
90    #[cfg(unix)]
91    {
92        match std::process::Command::new("kill")
93            .arg("-0")
94            .arg(pid.to_string())
95            .output()
96        {
97            Ok(o) if o.status.success() => true,
98            Ok(o) => {
99                // "No such process" is the one answer that actually means the
100                // pid is gone. Anything else - most commonly "Operation not
101                // permitted" for a pid that exists under another account - is
102                // not evidence of that.
103                let stderr = String::from_utf8_lossy(&o.stderr).to_lowercase();
104                !stderr.contains("no such process")
105            }
106            Err(_) => true,
107        }
108    }
109    #[cfg(windows)]
110    {
111        let out = std::process::Command::new("tasklist")
112            .quiet()
113            .args(["/FI", &format!("PID eq {pid}"), "/NH", "/FO", "CSV"])
114            .output();
115        match out {
116            Ok(o) if o.status.success() => {
117                String::from_utf8_lossy(&o.stdout).contains(&format!("\"{pid}\""))
118            }
119            _ => true,
120        }
121    }
122    #[cfg(not(any(unix, windows)))]
123    {
124        true
125    }
126}
127
128#[cfg(test)]
129mod tests {
130    use super::*;
131
132    /// The flag is the one Windows documents, and not one of the two it is
133    /// easily confused with.
134    ///
135    /// `DETACHED_PROCESS` (0x8) is what leaves a process without a console -
136    /// which is what caused the windows this module exists to stop, because a
137    /// child of such a process gets a fresh console *with* a window.
138    /// `CREATE_NEW_CONSOLE` (0x10) asks for the window outright.
139    #[cfg(windows)]
140    #[test]
141    fn the_flag_hides_a_console_rather_than_removing_or_creating_one() {
142        assert_eq!(CREATE_NO_WINDOW, 0x0800_0000);
143        assert_ne!(CREATE_NO_WINDOW, 0x0000_0008, "DETACHED_PROCESS");
144        assert_ne!(CREATE_NO_WINDOW, 0x0000_0010, "CREATE_NEW_CONSOLE");
145    }
146
147    /// Applying it does not disturb the command being built.
148    ///
149    /// The trait returns `&mut Self` so it can sit in the middle of a builder
150    /// chain, and a call site that put it there must not lose its program or
151    /// arguments to it.
152    #[test]
153    fn quiet_leaves_the_command_it_was_handed_intact() {
154        let mut cmd = tokio::process::Command::new("git");
155        cmd.args(["status", "--short"]).quiet();
156        let built = cmd.as_std();
157        assert_eq!(built.get_program(), "git");
158        let args: Vec<_> = built.get_args().collect();
159        assert_eq!(args, ["status", "--short"]);
160    }
161
162    /// Every `Command::new` in this crate's own sources is either quieted or
163    /// carries one of the two exemptions this module's doc explains.
164    ///
165    /// A textual scan, not a lint: nothing in `cargo clippy` knows that a
166    /// console-app child of a console-less parent gets a window, so nothing
167    /// catches a spawn that forgot `.quiet()` short of a human reading every
168    /// call site - which is exactly how `disk.rs`'s PowerShell probe and
169    /// `graph.rs`'s `gh pr create` went unquieted despite every neighbouring
170    /// spawn getting it right. Each `Command::new` is checked against the
171    /// text between it and the next one in the same file (or end of file),
172    /// which is always enough to cover its own builder chain and never
173    /// bleeds into an unrelated spawn's exemption.
174    #[test]
175    fn every_spawn_in_the_crate_is_quiet_or_documented_as_exempt() {
176        let src_dir = std::path::Path::new(env!("CARGO_MANIFEST_DIR")).join("src");
177        let mut offenders = Vec::new();
178        for entry in std::fs::read_dir(&src_dir).expect("read src dir") {
179            let path = entry.expect("dir entry").path();
180            if path.extension().and_then(|e| e.to_str()) != Some("rs") {
181                continue;
182            }
183            let file_name = path
184                .file_name()
185                .and_then(|n| n.to_str())
186                .unwrap_or("")
187                .to_owned();
188            if file_name == "tui.rs" {
189                // explorer / open / xdg-open: GUI launchers, not console
190                // children - out of scope by design (see AGENTS.md).
191                continue;
192            }
193            let text = std::fs::read_to_string(&path).expect("read source file");
194            let lines: Vec<&str> = text.lines().collect();
195            let spawn_at: Vec<usize> = lines
196                .iter()
197                .enumerate()
198                .filter(|(_, l)| l.contains("Command::new("))
199                .map(|(i, _)| i)
200                .collect();
201            for (pos, &start) in spawn_at.iter().enumerate() {
202                let end = spawn_at.get(pos + 1).copied().unwrap_or(lines.len());
203                let block = lines[start..end].join("\n");
204                if block.contains(".quiet()") {
205                    continue;
206                }
207                // `spawn_successor`'s DETACHED_PROCESS successor has no
208                // console to inherit in the first place; see its doc comment
209                // in `web.rs`.
210                if block.contains("DETACHED_PROCESS") {
211                    continue;
212                }
213                // A spawn guarded by `#[cfg(unix)]` a few lines above cannot
214                // hit the Windows console bug at all.
215                let preceding = lines[start.saturating_sub(5)..start].join("\n");
216                if preceding.contains("#[cfg(unix)]") {
217                    continue;
218                }
219                offenders.push(format!("{file_name}:{}", start + 1));
220            }
221        }
222        assert!(
223            offenders.is_empty(),
224            "Command::new without .quiet() and no documented exemption: {offenders:?}"
225        );
226    }
227
228    #[test]
229    fn this_process_is_alive_and_a_pid_nothing_ever_reuses_is_not() {
230        assert!(pid_alive(std::process::id()), "this test is running");
231        // Not `u32::MAX`: Windows' `tasklist` answers a pid that large with
232        // "invalid query" rather than "no such process", which this helper
233        // - correctly - cannot tell apart from a check it simply could not
234        // run, so it reads as alive. A pid past any real process table but
235        // still a value `tasklist` accepts as a query is the one this test
236        // can assert on without racing whatever else is running on the
237        // machine.
238        assert!(!pid_alive(999_999_999));
239    }
240}