[stack 6/8] fix(coding-agent): complete Windows kernel and daemon startup

[sethkarten]

Stack 6/8 — fix(coding-agent): complete Windows kernel and daemon startup

Active review snapshot — do not merge yet. The complete stack is open for architecture/design review, while final cumulative audit, CI, Cursor Bug Bot, and Macroscope findings are being remediated. Branches will be force-updated after validation.

Base: stack/external-05-lifecycle
Review order: merge only after the preceding stack layer is accepted. This PR is not intended to merge independently out of order.

Stack navigation

1. #1158 — ci: harden verification and release compatibility
2. #1159 — fix(security): harden session and autonomous execution boundaries
3. #1160 — fix(coding-agent): make persisted state crash-safe
4. #1161 — fix(daemon): fence worker and supervisor lifecycle state
5. #1162 — fix(coding-agent): repair queued and archived session lifecycle
6. #1163 — fix(coding-agent): complete Windows kernel and daemon startup
7. #1164 — fix(providers): harden MCP OAuth and Codex transports
8. #1165 — fix(runtime): bound transcript and autonomous recovery

Summary

• Use the Windows managed-venv interpreter layout and official PowerShell uv bootstrap.
• Avoid catalog/worker startup livelocks and perform fresh process-identity validation.
• Require a native Windows named-pipe smoke covering supervisor, worker authentication, RPC, and catalog readiness.

Validation

• npm run check; focused daemon suites 52/52; required native windows-latest supervisor/worker/catalog smoke must pass on the PR.

Provenance

• Authored independently from upstream/main using issue reports and PR descriptions/comments only.
• No external contributor branch, diff, commit, implementation code, or test code was fetched, inspected, copied, or reused.
• The implementation and regression tests in this stack are maintainer-owned.

Linked-item disposition

Fixed on merge

• Fixes Windows: kernel bootstrap uses venv bin/python, so the IPython kernel never starts and each retry wipes the venv #660 — Windows: kernel bootstrap uses venv bin/python, so the IPython kernel never starts and each retry wipes the venv
• Fixes Windows: worker never responds to worker_auth despite #608 (daemon crash visibility fix) — silent hang, not a crash #1077 — Windows: worker never responds to worker_auth despite fix(coding-agent): show why the daemon crashed instead of a generic timeout #608 (daemon crash visibility fix) — silent hang, not a crash

Independently superseded pull requests

• fix(coding-agent): bootstrap IPython kernel venv with the Windows interpreter path #695 (open) — fix(coding-agent): bootstrap IPython kernel venv with the Windows interpreter path — will be closed with a pointer to this independently authored PR
• fix(coding-agent): resolve kernel venv interpreter for Windows layout #663 (open) — fix(coding-agent): resolve kernel venv interpreter for Windows layout — will be closed with a pointer to this independently authored PR
• Windows native support #978 (open) — Windows native support — will be closed with a pointer to this independently authored PR
• fix(coding-agent): Windows support for kernel bootstrap and console-less daemon spawns #825 (open) — fix(coding-agent): Windows support for kernel bootstrap and console-less daemon spawns — will be closed with a pointer to this independently authored PR

Partial/distinct overlap — remains open

• fix(windows): bring Windows to parity with Linux and macOS #1053 — fix(windows): bring Windows to parity with Linux and macOS
• feat(windows): add installer and runtime support #1119 — feat(windows): add installer and runtime support

Reviewer notes

• Please review this layer against its immediate stack base, not against main, to avoid cumulative duplicate diffs.
• No merge is requested; the complete stack is being left for human review.

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