SubdirectoryHintTracker was scanning directories outside the active
working directory, allowing files like ~/.codex/AGENTS.md or
~/.claude/CLAUDE.md to be loaded and injected into the agent context.
This causes cross-agent context contamination and instruction mixup.
Add _is_ancestor_or_same() helper and a path boundary check in
_is_valid_subdir(): only directories within the working directory tree
(i.e. path.is_relative_to(working_dir)) are allowed.
Also add exist_ok=True to mkdir() calls in new tests to prevent
pytest-xdist race conditions when workers share the same tmp_path parent.
Tests added:
- test_outside_working_dir_rejected: verifies sibling dirs are blocked
- test_outside_working_dir_absolute_path_rejected: verifies ~/.codex paths blocked
- test_inside_workspace_subdir_allowed: verifies normal subdir access unaffected
- test_sibling_repo_not_loaded_via_ancestor_walk: ancestor walk stays within workspace
Wrap is_dir() in _is_valid_subdir() and is_file() in
_load_hints_for_directory() with OSError handlers so that
inaccessible directories (e.g. /root from a non-root Daytona
host user) are silently skipped instead of crashing the agent.
The existing PermissionError PRs for prompt_builder.py (#6247,
#6321, #6355) do not cover subdirectory_hints.py, which was
identified as a separate crash path in the #6214 comments.
Ref: #6214
As the agent navigates into subdirectories via tool calls (read_file,
terminal, search_files, etc.), automatically discover and load project
context files (AGENTS.md, CLAUDE.md, .cursorrules) from those directories.
Previously, context files were only loaded from the CWD at session start.
If the agent moved into backend/, frontend/, or any subdirectory with its
own AGENTS.md, those instructions were never seen.
Now, SubdirectoryHintTracker watches tool call arguments for file paths
and shell commands, resolves directories, and loads hint files on first
access. Discovered hints are appended to the tool result so the model
gets relevant context at the moment it starts working in a new area —
without modifying the system prompt (preserving prompt caching).
Features:
- Extracts paths from tool args (path, workdir) and shell commands
- Loads AGENTS.md, CLAUDE.md, .cursorrules (first match per directory)
- Deduplicates — each directory loaded at most once per session
- Ignores paths outside the working directory
- Truncates large hint files at 8K chars
- Works on both sequential and concurrent tool execution paths
Inspired by Block/goose SubdirectoryHintTracker.
