Adapter Authoring Notes

In-repo notes for adapter authors. The user-facing guide lives at docs/adapters/creating-an-adapter.md; this file holds invariants that are easy to violate from inside the adapter package itself.

No-remote-git contract (cross-run persistence)

The local execution-workspace cwd is the only persistence boundary across runs. No adapter may depend on a git remote for cross-run state.

Why: Paperclip resolves a local execution workspace (a worktree) for each heartbeat. Code state is carried forward by syncing that local cwd to wherever the agent actually runs — over ssh, into a sandbox, into a managed runtime — and then syncing changes back when the run finishes. Treating a git remote as the source of truth (git push from inside the agent, fetch on the next wake) breaks dependent issues that are gated on the local worktree being caught up, and breaks isolated execution workspaces that have no remote configured at all.

How to apply:

• Never git push from adapter runtime code. Never assume the local worktree has any git remote configured. If you need data from the previous run, read it from the local cwd Paperclip handed you.
• If your adapter runs the agent on a different host (ssh, sandbox, remote container), use the round-trip helpers in @paperclipai/adapter-utils: prepareWorkspaceForSshExecution bundles the local cwd to the remote dir before the run, and restoreWorkspaceFromSshExecution syncs remote-side changes (including new git commits) back into the local cwd after the run. Both run with no git remote configured.
• If your adapter runs the agent locally, you can read and write the cwd directly — same invariant applies: changes that future runs need must live in the local cwd by the time execute() returns.
• A failed sync-back is a run-level error. The heartbeat records workspace_finalize=failed on the execution workspace, which gates dependent issue wakes until the next successful finalize. Do not swallow restore errors.

The invariant is pinned by the no-remote-git contract case in packages/adapter-utils/src/ssh-fixture.test.ts, which asserts that a remote-only commit propagates to the local worktree through prepareWorkspaceForSshExecution → restoreWorkspaceFromSshExecution with no git remote configured at any point.

A static check enforces the rule before runtime ever sees it: scripts/check-no-git-push.mjs scans adapter and runtime source (packages/adapters/, packages/adapter-utils/, server/src/, cli/src/) and fails the policy CI job if any unapproved git push invocation is added. If you are building an operator-configured path that legitimately must push, add a // paperclip:allow-git-push: <reason> comment on the line (or the line above) so the opt-in shows up in code review.

For the architecture-level write-up of cross-run persistence, see docs/guides/board-operator/execution-workspaces-and-runtime-services.md.