The command line #

What commands didbot has, who runs which, where each is installed, and how they fit together. cli is the epic that owns the decisions; crates/didbot-dispatch, crates/didbot-cli, crates/didbot-operator and crates/didbot-agentd are the code, and the shape of the system draws the hosts these run on.

Six binaries #

A person types didbot. What runs is one binary per place the code runs, each versioned and installed on its own.

didbot is a router and nothing more. It carries a table of the first-party verbs, the binary that runs each and the crate that ships it, so a verb whose binary is absent is met with what to install rather than "unknown command".

What didbot does with a verb #

didbot <verb> … looks the verb up in its table, finds the binary on PATH, and replaces itself with it. The verb receives the rest of the command line as typed and this process's environment with every credential variable removed: DIDBOT_ACCOUNT_TOKEN and DIDBOT_ACCOUNT_TOKEN_FILE. Nothing is added. On unix the verb's process replaces the dispatcher's, so the verb's exit status is the shell's.

didbot --list scans PATH for didbot-*, asks each for --version, and prints name, version and path; a binary that does not respond inside three seconds is listed with ?. A first-party binary that is not installed is named after the list, with the verbs it would run:

didbot           0.1.0  /home/operator/.cargo/bin/didbot
didbot-operator  0.1.0  /home/operator/.cargo/bin/didbot-operator
didbot-oauth: not installed (oauth)
didbot-register: not installed (register)

didbot help <verb> is didbot <verb> --help, resolved the same way; didbot help alone prints the dispatcher's own help.

The operator's commands #

didbot-operator holds two sign-ins that never meet. operate authenticates to the operator's own atproto account and writes bot.did.operator into their own repository; the session it keeps is checked by the operator's own PDS, and it is the only sign-in that admits anything. login starts the deployment's own sign-in and keeps the session the deployment minted; estop and announce present that session to the same /dashboard/api/* routes the dashboard's buttons call, and admit nothing. Neither verb can use the other's session.

didbot operate <NAME> <OPERATOR> signs in to the operator's own account through OAuth, with a scope no wider than writing bot.did.operator and, for an account, one service-auth call at its server. A browser opens for the consent screen once; the session is kept in $XDG_CONFIG_HOME/didbot-operator/sessions.json and resumed on the next run while its grant covers what the run asks for. What follows depends on the name: a name that answers describeServer with its own DID is a server, and any other name, or one given with --kind or --oidc, is an account.

A server's own hostname is the top edge. The command waits for the server to answer over TLS, checks its identity, writes the record naming it, prints the record's URI and returns. The server polls the operator's repository on its own interval and finds the claim there.

An account is admitted beneath a server the operator already claimed: didbot operate kestrel.pds.example op.example --kind agent. Which server is read from the operator's own repository, with no credential: the name must end in .<SERVER> for a server that repository holds bot.did.operator/<SERVER> for, and --server <HOSTNAME> picks one when it sits under more than one. Nothing that answers at the name has a say. The sign-in asks for rpc:bot.did.createAccount?aud=did:web:<SERVER> beside the write, the operator's own PDS mints a service-auth token for that one call first, then the record naming the account goes into the operator's repository, keyed by the name, and the server creates did:web:<NAME> with the token: the operator's credential never reaches the server. A server that refuses the create has the record taken back — deleted, or put back as it stood before the run — and the refusal says which. A key didbot register parked under the name is shown with its kind and fingerprint and admitted on a y; --fingerprint SHA256:..., copied from what register printed, admits it without the question and refuses when it differs. Its kind wins over --kind, and --oidc is refused while it stands. With nothing parked, --kind says what the account is and --oidc <ISSUER> <CLAIM=VALUE>... makes a token from that issuer its way of signing in: every claim named must equal its value, a number or a boolean spelled as JSON spells it, and a name beginning with / is a JSON pointer into a nested claim (/kubernetes.io/namespace=agents). From AWS OIDC to didbot has the lines for each platform. --label is free text kept on the registration. The session the server returns is written under $DIDBOT_STATE/accounts/<NAME>.token, the file DIDBOT_ACCOUNT_TOKEN_FILE points didbot-oauth at.

didbot operate --check <NAME> signs in to nothing and writes nothing, and exits 1 until it passes, so a script can wait on it. For a server it resolves the hostname, opens HTTPS to it, reads its did:web document and cross-checks describeServer. For an account it walks the tree: the account's bot.did.registration/self names an operator, that operator's bot.did.operator/<NAME> names the account back, and the walk climbs to the operator while its repository is on the same server, printing each edge and refusing past three. The last edge printed is the server's own: the operator the walk ended at holds bot.did.operator/<SERVER> naming it.

didbot login --server <HOSTNAME> [HANDLE] prints a URL and listens on a loopback port. The deployment runs its own sign-in against the operator's account, identity only, and mints a session; the browser brings it back to the loopback port and the command stores it in $XDG_CONFIG_HOME/didbot/operator.json, mode 0600, one entry per server. When estop or announce is refused with 401, the fix the refusal names is to run didbot login --server <HOSTNAME> again.

didbot estop --server <HOSTNAME> with no setting reports what the stop is doing and what it has refused. --pause stops new tokens and new provisioning, --revoke stops outstanding work too, and --release clears the stop; one setting at a time. didbot announce --server <HOSTNAME> asks the configured relay to crawl the deployment, and --resume calls the deprecated notifyOfUpdate instead.

The agent host's commands #

An agent host runs didbot-agentd once, and the hook the didbot-claude plugin installs reports every harness event to it over a unix socket. The daemon provisions one account per context, holds each account's token, and follows the sign-in requests the server holds for those accounts. didbot oauth is the one command an agent runs, and everything in it names a request — a token, or the URL of one — and never an account. The daemon on an agent host draws the daemon's inside; this picture is the commands and the socket between them.

didbot oauth pending prints one line per request waiting for this agent, each with its token. didbot oauth approve <token> lets one in and didbot oauth decline <token> [--reason WHY] turns it down. A token names one request, is good once, and is not an account: the daemon acts as the account named by the record it holds that token in. When no hook saw the client print its URL and the poll has not come back, didbot oauth show <url> looks the request up by that URL, and didbot oauth approve --url <url> and didbot oauth decline --url <url> [--reason WHY] settle it.

didbot register <KIND> <NAME> makes the machine it runs on an account at the server --server <HOSTNAME> or DIDBOT_PDS names, as a hostname or a URL; <NAME> must end in .<HOSTNAME> as that server's describeServer reports it, and nothing is asked at the name. It mints a key under $DIDBOT_STATE — the daemon's own key for a host, keys/<NAME>.key for a service, pipeline or agent — and parks the public half at the server under the name, printing the fingerprint and the didbot operate <NAME> --fingerprint ... to run on the operator's machine. A key already parked under the name is somebody else's turn: the command refuses, says when that park expires, and mints nothing. It then waits, --timeout seconds (default 600), for the operator to admit the key, signs in as did:web:<NAME> with a JWT the key signs, and keeps the session under $DIDBOT_STATE/accounts/<NAME>.token. With --token-file <PATH> or --token-stdin and --under <PARENT>, an OIDC token is the parent instead: the account is created now, beneath the account whose document names that issuer, with the fresh key in its document. A token is never taken on the command line, where ps would show it.

didbot-agentd takes no options. DIDBOT_PDS names the server that mints accounts, as a hostname or a URL, and is required; DIDBOT_SOCK moves the socket from $XDG_RUNTIME_DIR/didbot-agent/agent.sock; DIDBOT_STATE moves the host's key from $XDG_STATE_HOME/didbot/agentd. The hook and didbot oauth read DIDBOT_SOCK too, so all three agree on where the socket is. The daemon creates one account per context beneath the host didbot register host made it, presenting a JWT its key signs; the server checks it against the host's document.

A host with no daemon runs the binary by name. With DIDBOT_PDS and either DIDBOT_ACCOUNT_TOKEN or DIDBOT_ACCOUNT_TOKEN_FILE set, didbot-oauth pending, show, approve and decline talk to that server as that one account; --direct insists on it rather than trying the socket first. Through the dispatcher both credential variables are removed before the hand-off, so didbot oauth reaches the socket and nothing else. An account whose document names an OpenID Connect identity signs in with --token-file <PATH> or --token-stdin instead: didbot oauth pending --token-file /run/secrets/id-token opens a session at DIDBOT_PDS through bot.did.createSession, then runs the command as that account. --token <JWT> is refused by name, so a token is never an argument ps can show.

Installing #

Every binary is a crate in one workspace, and cargo install takes the crate's name. The operator's own machine:

cargo install --git https://tangled.org/permadeath.com/didbot didbot-dispatch
cargo install --git https://tangled.org/permadeath.com/didbot didbot-operator

An agent host, where the didbot-agentd crate carries didbot-agentd, didbot-oauth and didbot-register:

cargo install --git https://tangled.org/permadeath.com/didbot didbot-dispatch
cargo install --git https://tangled.org/permadeath.com/didbot didbot-agentd

The hook that reports to the daemon is the didbot-claude plugin, installed from Claude Code:

claude plugin marketplace add git@tangled.org:permadeath.com/didbot-claude
claude plugin install didbot@didbot

The server runs didbot-pds as a container of the release image, built from the repository's Dockerfile and started by one systemd unit; deployment says how the image is built and run, and operations how it is upgraded and rolled back. The same binary runs on a laptop: it is the didbot-serve crate's, so cargo install --git https://tangled.org/permadeath.com/didbot didbot-serve installs it, and scripts/dev-pds.sh runs it from a checkout.

Extending #

didbot foo runs didbot-foo from PATH. The program receives the rest of the command line as its own arguments and the ordinary environment, less DIDBOT_ACCOUNT_TOKEN and DIDBOT_ACCOUNT_TOKEN_FILE; nothing is added, and no credential from the shell reaches it. It authenticates for itself, the way the first-party verbs do. didbot --list shows it beside them, with whatever its --version prints, and didbot help foo runs didbot-foo --help.

Conventions #

Every binary accepts --help and --version, prints on stdout and exits 0. --version prints <name> <version>, which is what didbot --list shows.

Three exit statuses: 0 did it, 1 understood the request and could not or would not do it, 2 did not understand the request. A refusal is one line on stderr, <program>: <message>, where the program is the spelling the person typed: didbot estop: --server <HOSTNAME> is required.

Every didbot-operator verb takes --server <HOSTNAME>, the deployment to act on, and --json, the result as one line of JSON on stdout for a script. Both read the same before or after the verb. didbot register takes --server <HOSTNAME> or reads DIDBOT_PDS; didbot oauth names its server through the daemon, or through DIDBOT_PDS when run by name. A server is spelled the same way in both, a hostname such as pds.example or a URL such as http://nc.localhost:3413; a .localhost name is reached over plain HTTP. DIDBOT_PDS is not a credential, and the dispatcher passes it through.