feat: setup/teardown commands and configurable symlink dirs in project settings

[linniksa]

Add per-project setup and teardown commands that run automatically when worktrees are created or removed. This lets users configure things
like npm install, environment setup, or cleanup scripts that execute in the context of each task's worktree.

Setup/teardown commands:

• Configurable in Edit Project dialog via a reusable CommandListEditor component
• $PROJECT_ROOT and $WORKTREE variable substitution in commands
• Setup runs after worktree creation, before the agent starts; teardown runs before worktree removal
• Live output displayed in a SetupBanner above the terminal with retry/skip on failure
• Initial prompt is stashed during setup to prevent the agent from acting before setup completes

Configurable symlink directories:

• Replace hardcoded symlink candidate list with per-project defaultSymlinkDirs setting
• New PathSelector component with autocomplete backed by ListProjectEntries IPC (Tab to navigate into subdirectories, supports nested
  paths)
• New-task dialog pre-fills symlink dirs from project defaults instead of scanning gitignored entries

[johannesjo]

Thank you very much for this and sorry for the late reply. Somehow I wasn't receiving notifications for PRs opened here....

PR #23 Review: Setup/Teardown Commands & Configurable Symlink Dirs

Strengths

• Clean CommandListEditor extraction — reusable for bookmarks, setup, and teardown
• PathSelector with directory autocomplete is well-designed (cancellation, keyboard nav, Tab-to-drill)
• SetupBanner with auto-scroll, retry/skip is solid UX
• Prompt stashing to prevent agent from acting during setup is clever
• requestAnimationFrame-buffered log flushing reduces store churn
• Path traversal protection in listProjectEntries and createWorktree looks correct
• Types are properly optional — backward compatible with persisted state

---

CRITICAL (must fix before merge)

1. Unintended deletions from rebase — notifications and plan watcher cleanup broken

The diff removes StopPlanWatcher, ShowNotification, and NotificationClicked from channels.ts, register.ts, and preload.cjs. These are still actively used:

• src/store/tasks.ts calls invoke(IPC.StopPlanWatcher, ...) on task close/collapse
• src/store/desktopNotifications.ts uses ShowNotification and NotificationClicked

This will leak plan file watchers and silently break all desktop notifications. Appears to be a rebase artifact — these have nothing to do with the PR's intent.

2. deleteTask signature change drops taskId — plan watcher leak on backend

The PR changes deleteTask in electron/ipc/tasks.ts from an options object to positional params and removes the stopPlanWatcher(opts.taskId) call. Combined with #1, plan watchers are never cleaned up on task deletion.

3. STDERR_CAP removed from pushTask — reverts recent bug fix

Commit c0d312b on main ("cap unbounded buffers and stop leaked plan watchers") added a 4096-byte cap to stderr in pushTask. The PR removes it, re-introducing unbounded buffer growth from verbose git push output.

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IMPORTANT (should fix)

4. .claude shallow-symlink special handling removed

The old code shallow-symlinked .claude (excluding plans and settings.local.json which must be per-worktree). Now it's a plain symlink. If users add .claude to their symlink dirs, plans and local settings will collide across worktrees.

5. Race condition: task closed during setup

If closeTask runs while setup is in progress, spawned processes aren't killed, and .finally() will try to write to a deleted task in the store.

6. Teardown output silently discarded

Teardown creates a Channel<string>() but never reads from it. Makes debugging teardown failures impossible.

7. IPC.RunSetupCommands used for teardown too

Semantically misleading. Consider renaming to RunProjectCommands or adding a separate channel.

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Minor / Nice-to-Have

8. subpath arg in register.ts should be validated (assertOptionalString)
9. Branch name typo: feature/setup-and-terdown (missing "a")
10. PathSelector renders input even when projectRoot is undefined (no-project state in NewTaskDialog)
11. logBuffer may not flush if the final rAF fires after the promise resolves — force-flush in .then()/.catch()

---

Verdict

The core feature (setup/teardown, PathSelector, CommandListEditor) is well-implemented. However, the three critical issues are regressions from what appears to be a bad rebase — they break notifications, leak file watchers, and revert a buffer cap fix. These must be resolved before merge.

[johannesjo]

Security: shell metacharacter injection via $PROJECT_ROOT/$WORKTREE substitution

setup.ts substitutes projectRoot and worktreePath into the command string, then passes the result to spawn(cmd, { shell: true }). If either path contains shell metacharacters (spaces, $, backticks, semicolons, etc.), the shell will interpret them. Example: a project path of /home/user/my project; echo pwned would result in two shell commands being executed.

// setup.ts – the substituted string is passed directly to a shell
const cmd = expandVars(raw);   // e.g. "npm install --prefix /home/user/my project; echo pwned"
spawn(cmd, { shell: true, ... });

Fix options:

1. Shell-quote the substituted values when inserting them (e.g. wrap in single-quotes, escaping any single-quote inside with '\'').
2. Pass commands as an argument array to spawn and handle variable substitution at the array level (though this prevents users from using pipes/redirects in their commands, which may be intentional).

The simplest safe fix is to quote the values:

const shellQuote = (s: string) => `'${s.replace(/'/g, "'\\''")}'`;
const expandVars = (cmd: string): string =>
  cmd
    .replace(/\$\{PROJECT_ROOT\}|\$PROJECT_ROOT\b/g, () => shellQuote(projectRoot))
    .replace(/\$\{WORKTREE\}|\$WORKTREE\b/g, () => shellQuote(worktreePath));

In practice, project roots set by the user on their own machine make this low-severity, but it's worth closing if paths can ever contain spaces (common on macOS).

This is a new finding not covered by the existing review — all other items I checked were already thoroughly addressed by @johannesjo.

[johannesjo]

Thank you very much! <3

[johannesjo]

New finding: In electron/ipc/setup.ts, $PROJECT_ROOT and $WORKTREE are substituted into the command string and then executed via spawn(cmd, { shell: true }). If either path contains shell metacharacters (spaces, semicolons, backticks), the shell will interpret them — potential shell injection. Fix: shell-quote the substituted values before interpolation.

In addition, the three critical rebase regressions from the existing review must be fixed before merge: removal of StopPlanWatcher/ShowNotification/NotificationClicked IPC channels (breaking notifications and leaking plan watchers), the deleteTask signature drop of stopPlanWatcher, and loss of the STDERR_CAP buffer guard. Details in the review comment.

[johannesjo]

@linniksa Thank you very much for this! Sorry for the delay. I took the liberty to make some adjustments. Could you maybe have a look if the updated version fits your vision?