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Make the app's daemon management follow NODESPACE_HOME #3616
Description
Problem
The desktop app's daemon management (ensure_daemon_running, the launchd plist it writes) ignores NODESPACE_HOME. An app started with an isolated home still manages, and points its launchd job at, the user's real daemon setup. Also, the launchd daemon doesn't inherit the app's NODESPACE_HOME. #3611 documents that limitation for the bundled-model copy.
Found while implementing #2781 Part B (#3611). Related: #3601, #3609, #3612 (other components that now follow NODESPACE_HOME).
Documentation
- daemon-cli-lifecycle.md: daemon registration and the embedding-model section.
- daemon-cli-protocol.md: state paths.
Acceptance criteria
- Decide and document whether an isolated
NODESPACE_HOMEapp run should register its own launchd job, passNODESPACE_HOMEto the daemon, or refuse to manage a launchd job at all. Write the decision in the docs first. - Implement it, with tests using scratch homes and no real launchctl calls.
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mstomar125 commentedon Oct 5, 2026
@malibio for tomorrow's discussion: the decision is proposed in NodeSpaceAI/nodespace-docs#111 and implemented in #3637. Both are held until we agree.
What we found. An app started with only
NODESPACE_HOMEset still connected to the real$HOME/.nodespacesocket, registered the real launchd job (withoutNODESPACE_HOME), and stopped the real daemon on quit. So it read and wrote the user's own databases.daemon-cli-protocol.mdclaimed a different home meant a different socket; it didn't.Proposed rule. For a home other than the user's, the app runs the daemon headless as its own child process. It never calls
launchctl,systemctlorreg, uses a per-home socket or pipe, and stops the daemon by PID, never by image name. Deleting the home cleans everything up. The trade-off: no tray, no crash restart and no login start for another home. The user's own home is byte-for-byte unchanged, and a test proves it against main.Rejected: a per-home launchd job (leaves orphaned login jobs, and
nodespace uninstalland the product check only know the shared label), a dev flag, and expecting a hand-started daemon.Open for the discussion:
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malibio commentedon Oct 5, 2026
Closing as not planned.
NODESPACE_HOMEis a test setting for the daemon and the CLI; the desktop app does not read it and manages one daemon through the shared registration. Reasoning: https://github.com/NodeSpaceAI/nodespace-docs/pull/111#issuecomment-5998859172