mirror of
https://github.com/Ark0N/Codeman.git
synced 2026-10-03 22:19:42 +02:00
Codeman maintainer
73c0bfccc4
- A markdown preview opened by attachment id under a bare file name
(attachment cards, history drawer) no longer resolves relative refs
against the workspace root: filePreviewText carries attachmentId, and
the rebase pass turns those images into their alt text and unwraps
those links. Absolute-path and workspace previews are unchanged.
- _renderMarkdown(text, { breaks = true } = {}): the File Viewer passes
breaks: false, so a hard-wrapped paragraph renders as one paragraph;
the Response Viewer keeps a <br> per newline.
- Absolute paths linkified inside a rendered document now carry the
preview's data-session-id.
- CLAUDE.md, architecture-invariants and the Working-With-Files wiki page
now say that only an in-workspace path clicked in the terminal keeps
the tail viewer.
- Tests in test/file-preview-markdown.test.ts for all three fixes,
including an end-to-end run of the shipping app.js + marked + DOMPurify.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5.5 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
184 lines
10 KiB
Markdown
184 lines
10 KiB
Markdown
# Working With Files
|
|
|
|
Reading, editing, attaching, and previewing files without leaving the dashboard. Useful on
|
|
a desktop; on a phone it is the difference between reviewing an agent's work and waiting
|
|
until you get home.
|
|
|
|
## The File Viewer
|
|
|
|
A panel that browses the active session's working directory. Its header button is on by
|
|
default; if it is missing, re-enable it in **App Settings → Header & Panels**.
|
|
|
|
It renders what it can:
|
|
|
|
| Kind | Behaviour |
|
|
| ------------------------ | ------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
|
|
| Text and code | Plain preview with Lines (line numbers) and Wrap toggles in the header. Long files are truncated in plain preview. |
|
|
| Markdown | Rendered by default: headings, tables, code blocks with copy buttons, images and links relative to the file (root-relative ones resolve from the workspace root, as on GitHub). Opened from an attachment card, where the file's folder is unknown, relative images show their alt text and relative links show as plain text. The MD pill in the header flips to source. |
|
|
| Images | Inline. |
|
|
| Audio and video | Inline with a working scrub bar, because range requests are supported. |
|
|
| PDF and Office documents | Converted for preview when a converter is available. |
|
|
| Anything else | Download. |
|
|
|
|
Caps: 10 MB for text preview, 2 GB for raw and download (set `CODEMAN_MAX_DOWNLOAD_BYTES`
|
|
to change it, `0` for no limit — these bodies are streamed, so a large file costs a read
|
|
stream rather than server memory). Sensitive paths (`.env`, anything
|
|
matching credentials, `~/.ssh`, AWS credentials) are blocked from download, and SVG and HTML
|
|
are served as downloads rather than rendered, so they cannot execute in the page.
|
|
|
|
Closing the preview pauses and unloads any playing media. A video that keeps playing after
|
|
you close the panel means you are on an old version.
|
|
|
|
## Editing in place
|
|
|
|
Text files can be edited and saved directly in the viewer. Click the pencil in the preview
|
|
header, edit, **Save**.
|
|
|
|
The guardrails are worth knowing, because they are what makes editing safe rather than
|
|
convenient:
|
|
|
|
- **Extension allowlist**, not a blocklist. Code, docs, config, and markup are editable.
|
|
Anything not on the list is not.
|
|
- **512 KB cap** on both read and write.
|
|
- **Edit mode never truncates.** The plain preview does truncate long files, and saving a
|
|
truncated buffer would silently delete the rest, so the editor loads the whole file or
|
|
refuses.
|
|
- **Optimistic concurrency.** The save carries a hash of what you started from. If the file
|
|
changed underneath you (likely, when an agent is working in the same repo), the save is
|
|
rejected rather than clobbering their work.
|
|
- **No file creation.** Writes go to a temporary file and are renamed over the original, and
|
|
the open never creates. Editing in place is structural, not a rule.
|
|
- **Line endings are preserved** server-side, so editing two lines of a CRLF file does not
|
|
produce a whole-file diff.
|
|
- **`.git/` is denied outright.** Hooks are executable code, and a corrupted index looks
|
|
unrecoverable to someone who wanted to fix a typo.
|
|
- **Non-UTF-8 content is refused**, verified by a round-trip comparison.
|
|
|
|
## Attachments
|
|
|
|
Attachments are live references to files **outside** the session's workspace: a spec on your
|
|
desktop, a PDF in Downloads, a design document elsewhere on the machine.
|
|
|
|
Register one from the CLI:
|
|
|
|
```bash
|
|
codeman attach /path/to/spec.pdf
|
|
```
|
|
|
|
An attachment card appears in the session, and the file can be previewed inline. The
|
|
attachment gets a stable id, and browser requests use that id rather than carrying absolute
|
|
paths around.
|
|
|
|
Agents can register attachments too, by emitting a `codeman://attach?...` link in their
|
|
output. That path is **prompt-injectable by nature**, so it is force-confined to the
|
|
session's workspace: a hostile prompt cannot use it to pull arbitrary host files into the
|
|
event stream. The gate is an extension allowlist rather than a blocklist.
|
|
|
|
Document conversion for previews is globally rate limited. Without that, ten large documents
|
|
detected at once would fork ten multi-minute converter processes.
|
|
|
|
## Clicking a path
|
|
|
|
File paths in a session are links. That works in two places:
|
|
|
|
- **In the terminal**, on any absolute path an agent prints.
|
|
- **In the response viewer**, where paths are usually written as prose or in backticks. They
|
|
render as underlined monospace links.
|
|
|
|
Clicking one opens it in the preview: images and PDFs render, video and audio play with a
|
|
working scrub bar, documents convert, text shows inline and Markdown renders. The exception is
|
|
a text or Markdown file inside the workspace clicked in the terminal: that opens in the tail
|
|
viewer instead, which follows a file that is still being written.
|
|
|
|
Paths **outside** the session's workspace work too, which matters because that is where most
|
|
of an agent's output lands: a screenshot in `/tmp`, a capture in its own scratchpad, a file in
|
|
another checkout. Those are served through the attachment routes rather than the workspace
|
|
ones, so the same rules apply as to any other attachment: secret trees are blocked, the
|
|
extension allowlist decides what can be opened, and symlinks are resolved before either check.
|
|
|
|
Outside the workspace the allowlist is images, video, audio, PDF, Office documents, and text
|
|
files, where "text" is the same list the viewer will let you edit: code, config, logs, csv,
|
|
markdown. The reasoning is that a session can already `cat` any of those, so the file suffix
|
|
was never what kept anything secret; the path guard is. Types outside the list (`.svg`,
|
|
`.bmp`) say so rather than failing silently, and `.html` previews as source rather than being
|
|
rendered, so nothing served this way can execute in the page.
|
|
|
|
Text previews are capped at the first 500 lines, fetched as a partial read, so clicking a
|
|
one-gigabyte log does not try to paint one.
|
|
|
|
Log-shaped files inside the workspace still open in the tail viewer, which follows a file as
|
|
it is written. Outside the workspace they open in the preview instead: the tail viewer runs
|
|
`tail -f`, and that is deliberately restricted to the workspace, `/var/log` and `~/logs`.
|
|
|
|
Nothing is registered until you click. Opening a file this way does not add an attachment card.
|
|
|
|
## Remote (SSH) cases
|
|
|
|
In a remote case the workspace lives on the other machine, and so do the files. Previews,
|
|
downloads, text reads and the clicked-path route all go over the same ssh connection the
|
|
session uses: one `realpath` plus `stat` probe for the file and the workspace root, then a
|
|
streamed `cat` (or a slice of it, so video seeking works). Symlinks are resolved on the host
|
|
that can resolve them, the size cap applies to the remote size before a byte is requested,
|
|
and an unreachable host answers 502 rather than pretending the file is missing. Nothing is
|
|
ever copied onto the Codeman host, and a same-named local file is never served under a
|
|
remote name.
|
|
|
|
Not available over ssh, and said so with a 400 instead of a misleading 404: editing in
|
|
place, Office previews and generated thumbnails (both need the bytes on the server's disk),
|
|
the file tree and path picker, and the tail viewer. Docker cases are unaffected, because
|
|
their workspace is bind-mounted at the same path.
|
|
|
|
## The path picker
|
|
|
|
For choosing a path rather than typing one. It appears in two places:
|
|
|
|
- **Browse** in **Add Case → Link Existing**.
|
|
- The **📁 Path** key on the mobile keyboard bar.
|
|
|
|
It browses one directory at a time and can show hidden entries on request. The current
|
|
folder is an editable field: type or paste a path and press Enter (or **Go**) to jump
|
|
straight there, and a full file path lands in its folder with that file selected. The
|
|
**Sort** control orders each listing by name or by modified time (newest first is the
|
|
quick way to the file an agent just wrote), with folders always ahead of files; the
|
|
choice is remembered per device. The picker inserts the path into your prompt
|
|
**without** pressing Enter, so nothing is submitted by accident. Its sibling **⌫ All**
|
|
key clears the unsent prompt, and never sends the agent's `/clear` command.
|
|
|
|
This is a separate file-serving surface from the viewer, with its own rules: it allowlists
|
|
your home directory, the cases directory, and anything in `CODEMAN_FILE_PICKER_ROOTS`, and
|
|
blocks sensitive trees. In multi-user mode a non-admin gets only their own user space as a
|
|
root, because per-user spaces live inside the home directory and a home-directory root would
|
|
expose everyone.
|
|
|
|
## Images into a session
|
|
|
|
Paste from the clipboard or drag and drop straight onto the terminal. The image is written
|
|
where the agent can read it and the reference is inserted into your prompt. On a phone, the
|
|
image key in the keyboard bar opens the camera or photo library.
|
|
|
|
HEIC images from an iPhone are converted to JPEG on the way in.
|
|
|
|
## Generated artifacts
|
|
|
|
When an agent produces a file the UI can show (a chart, a diagram, a document), it can
|
|
surface as an artifact attachment rather than a path you have to go and find.
|
|
|
|
## Gotchas
|
|
|
|
- **The viewer follows the active session's workspace.** Switching tabs changes what you are
|
|
browsing.
|
|
- **A save can be rejected, and that is the feature.** It means the agent edited the file
|
|
while you were typing. Re-open, re-apply, save again.
|
|
- **Attachments live outside the workspace on purpose.** For files inside it, just use the
|
|
viewer.
|
|
- **`.env` files are readable in the viewer if the extension policy allows the preview, but
|
|
never downloadable.** Do not treat the viewer as a secrets boundary; treat the machine as
|
|
the boundary.
|
|
|
|
## Read next
|
|
|
|
- [The Dashboard](The-Dashboard) - where the panels live.
|
|
- [Input And Voice](Input-And-Voice) - other ways to get content into a session.
|
|
- [Security](Security) - how the file surfaces are confined.
|
|
- [`docs/file-viewer-edit-plan.md`](https://github.com/Ark0N/Codeman/blob/master/docs/file-viewer-edit-plan.md) - the edit-mode design.
|