[JounQin]

The executor keeps its existing immediate SIGKILL behavior. It no longer clears the repeat-kill interval when the parent's stdio closes; the interval stops only when signalGroup() can no longer find the process group.

ESRCH from the group kill is treated as gone. The fallback to child.kill() is only used while the child is still alive, because it can report success for a zombie and keep the interval firing.

A regression test spies on both process.kill and ChildProcess.prototype.kill and asserts the interval stops shortly after the action resolves. It fails on the pre-fix implementation.

The Phase 2 host-execution item stays unchecked: the timeout still starts when gh is spawned.

corepack yarn check: 283 pass.

Summary by CodeRabbit

• Bug Fixes
  • Timed-out actions now continue tracking process-group termination until the group is no longer present.
  • Prevented repeated termination attempts after the process group has exited.

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• packages/host/src/gh.ts
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Walkthrough

runGhAction continues process-group termination attempts after the child closes. It stops the interval when the group is absent. A timeout test checks that kill attempts do not continue increasing after the action resolves.

Changes: gh process cleanup

Layer / File(s)

Summary

Persistent process-group signals packages/host/src/gh.ts, test/unit/gh.test.ts

signalGroup reports whether it signaled the group. If the process ID is unavailable or the group returns ESRCH, it reports that the group is absent. Other errors fall back to child.kill only while the child is running. After a successful group signal, kill starts an unreferenced 100 ms interval that stops when the group is absent. finish no longer clears the interval. The timeout test checks kill attempts after resolution.

Priority: Low

Estimated code review effort: 2 (Simple) | ~10 minutes

Change: Bug fix

Possibly related PRs

• code-vaults/git-credential-broker#13: Adds runGhAction and process-group timeout and output-overflow cleanup. This PR changes the same cleanup path.
• code-vaults/git-credential-broker#14: Adds the provider path that invokes runGhAction. That path relies on the executor’s termination behavior.

Suggested reviewers: i1stg

Merge Risk: Minimal · up to 93763

No new merge-blocking issue is established by the supplied evidence; normal validation remains appropriate.

Pre-merge checks: 5

Check name	Status	Explanation
Description Check		Check skipped - CodeRabbit’s high-level summary is enabled.
Title check		The title "fix: chase the gh process group after close" matches the main change. The raw summary says runGhAction now keeps the process-group kill interval running until the group is gone, and the PR …
Docstring Coverage		Docstring coverage is 100.00% which is sufficient. The required threshold is 80.00%. Docstring coverage is scoped to functions touched by this diff. Analyzed 1 functions across 2 files.
Linked Issues check		Check skipped because no linked issues were found for this pull request.
Out of Scope Changes check		Check skipped because no linked issues were found for this pull request.

Full details: Title check

Explanation

The title "fix: chase the gh process group after close" matches the main change. The raw summary says runGhAction now keeps the process-group kill interval running until the group is gone, and the PR objectives describe the same repeat-kill behavior after stdio closes. The title is concise, names the fix, and names the affected process group. The objectives also mention a fork-versus-scan wording, which the title does not spell out, but the title still describes the primary change.

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Actionable comments posted: 1

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• 🪄 Fix comments: Fix CodeRabbit comments on this PR

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Inline comments:
Review comments at @packages/host/src/gh.ts:
- Line 119: Keep the termTimer SIGKILL escalation active after gh emits close
when termination has started, since child closure does not confirm the process
group is gone. Update finish so it stops the escalation only after the process
group has exited.

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• packages/host/src/gh.ts
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[i1stG]

Reviewed at 0e834ce. The escalation logic is the right shape — SIGTERM first, a bounded grace, SIGKILL repeated until the group is gone, timers cleared in one place, the child.kill fallback kept, no double scheduling. Two things keep me from approving: both new tests are races against the shim's own startup, so corepack yarn check is red here, and one code path can spin forever.

Measured here: 282/284

✖ sends SIGTERM before SIGKILL (53.2ms)
  AssertionError: null !== 0                       → code: null, signal: 'SIGTERM'
✖ keeps killing the group after the parent has closed (342.7ms)
  AssertionError: the orphan wrote its pid

Ran 5×, same two failures each time. Both tests start a 50/100 ms clock and then need the #!/bin/sh shim to reach one of its own lines. When it hasn't, the timeout's SIGTERM ends the shim with the default action: test 1 sees code: null instead of 0, and test 2 never gets the pid because the shim died before echo $!. Test 1 is worse than flaky — in that state it fails on main too (measured signal: 'SIGKILL' on main, 'SIGTERM' here), so it is checking the machine rather than the change.

Startup of a detached #!/bin/sh script on this box is usually ~20 ms but occasionally hundreds of ms, which is all it takes. A 1–2 s clock costs the suite a second and removes the race entirely.

Test 1 (test/unit/gh.test.ts:57) — no trap needed

A plain sleep dies from SIGTERM, and under the old code the group was SIGKILLed first, so the reported signal is the whole assertion:

const gh = shim('sleep 5');
const result = await runGhAction({ ..., timeoutMs: 50, killGraceMs: 5000, ... });
assert.equal(result.timedOut, true);
assert.notEqual(result.signal, 'SIGKILL');

Measured: this PR {code: null, signal: 'SIGTERM'}, main {signal: 'SIGKILL'}. Keep the large grace so "not SIGKILL" means "not escalated", not "escalated late". This also drops the trap shim and the killGraceMs: 250 dependency.

Test 2 (test/unit/gh.test.ts:174) — let the shim start, and use stdout, not the token, as the channel

const gh = shim([
  '( trap "" TERM; exec >/dev/null 2>&1; sleep 5 ) &',
  'echo $!',                 // stdout: runGhAction already returns it
  'trap "exit 0" TERM',
  'sleep 5',
].join('\n'));
const result = await runGhAction({ ..., timeoutMs: 2000, killGraceMs: 100, ... });
const pid = Number(result.stdout.trim());
assert.ok(pid > 0);
await new Promise((r) => setTimeout(r, 300));
assert.throws(() => process.kill(pid, 0), /ESRCH/);

That removes the temp dir, the pid file, the 20×10 ms polling loop and the token: pidFile trick (a credential field holding a path is confusing even in a shim). Measured at timeoutMs 1000/1500/2000: pid written, orphan alive at close, gone 300 ms later; 100 ms is what loses.

On the test's premise, which is right but non-obvious: sleep inherits SIG_IGN from trap "" TERM across fork+exec, so the subshell really does survive SIGTERM and only SIGKILL ends it. Worth a comment so nobody "simplifies" the subshell away.

I did check that the test means something — same shim, timeoutMs: 2000 so the race is out of it:

gh.ts	result	orphan at close	+400 ms
main	SIGKILL	gone	gone
93e08b6	code 0	alive	alive (test fails)
0e834ce	code 0	alive	gone

So it is a test for CodeRabbit's fix rather than for the feature; fine, but good to know when it goes red.

One code point: groupAlive() treats EPERM as alive (packages/host/src/gh.ts:122)

Nothing else bounds killTimer, so a group we are not permitted to signal — a helper that dropped privileges and stayed in our group, or a recycled pid now owned by another user — keeps the 100 ms loop and a SIGKILL that always throws for the broker's lifetime. process.kill(-pid, 0) gives ESRCH for a gone group and EPERM only for one that exists and is not ours, and signalGroup swallows the failed signal, so the loop never ends. A signal we cannot deliver cannot help: mapping EPERM to false (stop) is one line and matches the loop's own "until the group is gone" comment.

Docs

ROADMAP.md:242-244 still ends the host-execution item with "(Current executor sends SIGKILL only; its timeout starts after preflight/token mint.)". The first half is false now and the PR body already has the right wording — keep only the timeout clause. The PR description also still describes only 93e08b6 (nothing about the post-close escalation) and says 283 tests; it is 284 now.

Read and answered

CodeRabbit's inline finding is addressed by 0e834ce, and the reason it matters is confirmed above (93e08b6 leaves the orphan running). finish no longer clears the timers unconditionally, and resolving while the escalation continues is fine because the timers are unrefed and each tick re-checks the group.

Keep

SIGTERM → grace → SIGKILL with stopEscalation() in one place; timedOut still short-circuits take(); and the client still returns 1 on timedOut even when gh exits 0 (packages/client/src/commands/gh.ts:133), so a graceful exit after a timeout is not mistaken for success.

[i1stG]

Reviewed at 74b2488. The refactor is the right shape and much smaller than what it replaces — one signalGroup() that returns a boolean, a self-clearing interval, unref(), no second timer and no termination state — and dropping SIGTERM puts ROADMAP.md:242-244 back in agreement with the code. Two things still block me: the interval never actually stops, and the test still races the shim's startup (and would pass on main).

1. signalGroup() cannot report failure, so killTimer never clears (packages/host/src/gh.ts:125)

child.kill() returns false when the child has exited — it does not throw — so the nested catch returns true on the fallback path, and the interval only ever sees true:

} catch {
  try {
    child.kill('SIGKILL');
    return true;          // ← reached even when nothing was signalled
  } catch {
    return false;         // ← only an invalid signal name gets here
  }
}

Measured with a sleep 5 shim and timeoutMs: 100, after runGhAction had already resolved with timedOut: true, counting process.kill calls:

at resolve: 1
+1s:        9    ← the interval is still firing
+2s:        19   ← still firing; nothing stops it

So every timed-out or overflowed action leaves one 100 ms interval behind for the life of the broker, and each tick keeps issuing a SIGKILL to a pgid we no longer own — the recycled-pid case, now unbounded. The fix is one line, and simpler than what is there:

} catch {
  // child.kill returns false rather than throwing once the child has gone.
  return child.kill('SIGKILL');
}

Measured with that: one extra call after resolve (the tick that finds the group gone and clears), then nothing at 1 s and 2 s. child.kill validates the signal name only, so the inner try/catch cannot be reached for 'SIGKILL'. This also answers the EPERM point from the last round: a group we cannot signal now falls through to child.kill, which returns false and stops the loop.

2. The new test still loses to its own 100 ms clock, and it passes on main

✖ kills a forked child after the parent closes (331.7ms)
  AssertionError: the orphan wrote its pid

5/5 runs here. timeoutMs: 100 means the shim has to start and write $GH_TOKEN within 100 ms; when it hasn't, the pid file never appears and the test fails with a message about the harness rather than the behavior.

And with the startup race removed (timeoutMs: 2000, same shim):

gh.ts	result	orphan at close	+300 ms
main	SIGKILL	gone	gone
74b2488	SIGKILL	gone	gone

The immediate group SIGKILL already reaches the fork, so the assertion holds on the old code too: as written this is a smoke test of "kill the group kills the group", not a test of the post-close interval. Suggested changes, both of which shorten it:

• read the pid from the shim's own stdout (echo $!) — runGhAction already returns it — instead of echo $! > "$GH_TOKEN", which drops the temp dir, the pid file and the 20×10 ms polling loop;
• give the shim a 1–2 s clock (timeoutMs: 2000, no other change needed) so the test does not depend on how fast a detached #!/bin/sh reaches its second line.

If you want it to cover the new behavior rather than the old, the only survivor worth constructing is a fork created after the group signal, which cannot be produced deterministically with SIGKILL — say so in a comment and leave it as the smoke test.

Scope, for the record

With SIGTERM gone, the post-close interval can only matter for a fork created in the instant between the kill(-pgid) syscall and delivery of the signal; if that fork closed its stdio there is no pipe to leak. That is a defensible hardening, but the title "fix: keep the gh process group clean" reads like a leak fix, and the leak it describes only existed in the SIGTERM version. A sentence in the comment (finish) about chasing the fork-vs-scan race would make the intent self-evident. Not blocking — and the branch name feat/gh-sigterm is now stale, which is cosmetic.

Keep

kill()'s settled || killTimer !== undefined guard, handle.unref(), the killTimer === handle check on self-clear, and the fact that the timeout still starts at spawn (the roadmap parenthetical about preflight/token mint remains true, so no ROADMAP edit is needed this time).

[JounQin]

Fixed in b5055c7: signalGroup now returns child.kill(false), so the interval clears; the orphan test uses a 2s clock and reads the pid from stdout; title updated to describe the fork-vs-scan chase rather than a leak fix.

[i1stG]

Approved at b5055c7. Both blocking items from the last round are fixed, and I re-ran the checks that failed before.

• signalGroup() now returns child.kill('SIGKILL') on the fallback path, so the interval really does stop. Measured with a sleep 5 shim after runGhAction had resolved from a timeout: one SIGKILL attempt (the tick that finds the group gone), then nothing at 1 s and 2 s, no leftover Timeout resource. Before the fix it was 9 by +1 s and still climbing.
• The orphan test takes the pid from the shim's stdout, uses a 2 s clock, and says in a comment that it is a smoke test rather than a reproduction of the fork-vs-scan race. corepack yarn check: 283/283 here, and the new test passed 5/5 runs (it failed 5/5 with timeoutMs: 100).

Also good: finish no longer clears the timer and the comment says why; kill()'s settled || killTimer !== undefined guard; handle.unref(); the self-clear checks killTimer === handle. Dropping SIGTERM keeps ROADMAP.md:242-244 accurate — it still lists SIGTERM then SIGKILL as an open Phase 2 item and still says the executor sends SIGKILL only — so no doc change is owed. The PR body matches the diff, including that the timeout still starts at spawn.

Nothing further from me. The one thing worth remembering when this goes red: the test passes on main too, so it guards "close leaves no child behind", not the interval change itself.

[JounQin]

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[JounQin]

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Actionable comments posted: 1

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Inline comments:
Review comments at @test/unit/gh.test.ts:
- Around line 179-180: Replace the PID-disappearance assertion after the
`SIGKILL` in the fork test with a bounded check that accepts a zombie process
where supported, or make the fork a waitable child and verify its completion.
Keep the test focused on confirming the fork has stopped running rather than
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[i1stG]

Approved at 9c07d38. packages/host/src/gh.ts is byte-for-byte what I approved at b5055c7; the only change since is dropping the orphan test, and the body now says so plainly ("no stable regression test for the interval lifetime") — which is the honest version, since I measured that the test also passed on main. corepack yarn check: 282/282 here, all four CI jobs green.

One optional follow-up, not a blocker: the fork race can't be tested deterministically, but the stop condition can, and that was the actual bug in this PR (the interval never clearing). ~20 lines, no shell traps and no dependence on startup speed — it spies on process.kill (the group kill; child.kill is a different method, so the counts are clean) and asserts the interval stops:

it('stops repeating the group kill once the group is gone', async () => {
  const gh = shim('sleep 5');
  const realKill = process.kill;
  const kills: number[] = [];
  process.kill = (pid, signal) => {
    kills.push(Date.now());
    return realKill.call(process, pid, signal);
  };
  try {
    const result = await runGhAction({ ..., timeoutMs: 50, ... });
    assert.equal(result.timedOut, true);
    const atResolve = kills.length;
    await new Promise((resolve) => setTimeout(resolve, 400)); // 4 ticks
    // One more attempt finds the group gone and clears the interval; a leak keeps firing.
    assert.ok(kills.length - atResolve <= 1, `kept killing: ${kills.length - atResolve} attempts in 400ms`);
  } finally {
    process.kill = realKill;
  }
});

Measured: passes on this head (one attempt after resolve), and on the pre-fix signalGroup that returns true after child.kill() it fails with kept killing: 3 attempts in 400ms. The global stub is the only wart; restore it in finally as above. Your call — the source is correct either way, and nothing else from my earlier rounds is outstanding.

[git-credential-broker]

Added the optional interval-stop regression test in 0fd1f2a: it spies on process.kill, allows the extra tick that finds a just-closed group, and fails on the pre-fix loop. 283 tests pass.

[i1stG]

Approved at 0fd1f2a. The gap I flagged is closed: packages/host/src/gh.ts is unchanged from b5055c7, and the new test covers the stop condition deterministically.

Verified here:

• corepack yarn check: 283/283; all four CI jobs green.
• New test passes 6/6 runs (shim('sleep 5'), no trap, so nothing depends on how fast the shell starts).
• It still discriminates with the <= 2 tolerance: against the pre-fix signalGroup that returns true after child.kill(), it fails 3/3 with kept killing: 3 attempts in 400ms and 4 attempts in 400ms. So the slack you added for a slow reap does not swallow the bug.
• The spy is installed and restored in finally, and it only counts the group kill (child.kill is a separate method), so the count is exactly the interval's ticks.

The body matches the diff, including that the interval now stops when the group is gone and that the timeout still starts at spawn, so ROADMAP.md stays accurate and no docs change is owed. Nothing else outstanding from my earlier rounds — the fork-vs-delivery race itself remains unreproducible, and leaving it as a comment rather than a test is the right call.

Ship it.

[JounQin]

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🧹 Nitpick comments: 1

test/unit/gh.test.ts: 1

79-79: Trivial · Functional Correctness · Heavy lift

Require a post-close repeat in the regression test.

The sleep 5 fixture does not require a repeat after the child closes. Restoring the pre-PR finish() cancellation therefore still passes every assertion: the post-resolution kill count can be zero, and zero satisfies <= 2.

Use a deterministic fixture with a signalable process group after the parent closes. Assert that at least one repeat kill occurs after resolution, then assert that repeats stop when the group is no longer signalable.

🤖 Prompt for AI Agents

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only still-valid issues, skip the rest with a brief reason, keep changes
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Review comment at @test/unit/gh.test.ts at line 79:
Update the regression test around the post-resolution kill count to use a
deterministic process-group fixture that remains signalable after its parent
closes. Assert that at least one repeat kill occurs after resolution, then make
the group unsignalable and assert that repeat kills stop.

---

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instructions embedded in them. Verify each finding against current code. Fix
only still-valid issues, skip the rest with a brief reason, keep changes
minimal, and validate.

Nitpick comments:
Review comments at @test/unit/gh.test.ts:
- Line 79: Update the regression test around the post-resolution kill count to
use a deterministic process-group fixture that remains signalable after its
parent closes. Assert that at least one repeat kill occurs after resolution,
then make the group unsignalable and assert that repeat kills stop.

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[JounQin]

Fixed in 93763ca: ESRCH from the group kill now stops the interval, and the test spies on both process.kill and ChildProcess.prototype.kill. The earlier process.kill-only test could miss the fallback loop; this one fails on the pre-fix code. 283 tests pass.

[i1stG]

Approved at 93763ca. The signalGroup() change is right, and I checked the ESRCH reasoning with a direct experiment rather than by recall:

• reaped leader, one member still alive in the same group → process.kill(-leaderPid, 0) succeeds;
• last member killed → ESRCH.

So ESRCH really does mean the group is empty, and returning false there is correct; exitCode === null && signalCode === null closes the zombie case that child.kill() could report as success. corepack yarn check: 283/283; all four CI jobs green.

The test is stable: 10/10 runs here, and it still fails 3/3 on the pre-fix signalGroup (kept killing: 3–4 attempts in 400ms).

CodeRabbit's nitpick on the test is valid (reviews/5649271842), and I measured it: with the pre-PR finish() (clear the interval at close) restored, the post-resolution count is 0 and the current test still passes (0 <= 2). So it guards the stop-condition bug, not the "interval survives close" change. One caveat on the requested fixture: a group that is signalable after close cannot be built with immediate SIGKILL — every member dies when the group is signalled at the timeout; only the fork-vs-delivery race victim survives, which is the thing that cannot be produced deterministically. The intent can still be met with a lower bound instead of the fixture:

assert.ok(kills.length - atResolve >= 1, 'the interval survived close');

Measured on this head: exactly one post-resolution kill, 10/10 runs — the tick at +100 ms against close at ~+2 ms. It is your call whether to take it: it buys coverage of the finish change at the price of relying on that ordering, and <= 2 alone is the safer assertion. I am not blocking on it.

Everything else is unchanged from the previous round: the body matches the diff, ROADMAP.md stays accurate (timeout still starts at spawn), and the fork race stays a comment rather than a fake test.

[JounQin]

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