Problem: Scrolling could duplicate the pinned footer, long panels could hide status rows, and keycap or combining characters could disappear at line ends. Root cause: The renderer's cursor model could disagree with the terminal's Unicode width model, optional panels lacked a shared height budget, and the upstream wrapping fast path could split ASCII-led grapheme clusters. Fix: Update the official renderer, share a bounded scrollable panel layout between painting and sizing, and wrap styled terminal text by complete grapheme clusters. Keep keyboard selection and composer geometry in sync. Document panel scrolling in the English and Chinese guides. Verification: Final complete CLI tests, make lint, module verification and Ghostty WASM replays pass. Root-module tests passed after the dependency update. Before/after probes reproduce the original rendering failures. Native Ghostty window acceptance remains unverified. Fixes #14065
95 KiB
Reasonix Guide
Provider model capability metadata is documented in
MODEL_CAPABILITIES.md.
Day-to-day configuration and usage. For the engineering contract and internals (data types, registries, package layout, roadmap), see the Spec.
Contents
- Configuration
- Billing and display currency
- CLI reference
- Environment variables
- Web frontend
- Configuration paths
- Reasoning language
- Task contracts and pause policy
- Custom OpenAI-compatible providers
- Desktop hooks
- Keyboard shortcuts
- Permissions & sandbox
- File deliverables and the
presenttool - Capability diagnostics
- Plugins (MCP)
- Slash commands
- Embedded documentation retrieval
- @ references
- Two-model collaboration
Configuration
Resolution order: flag > ./reasonix.toml > the user config file >
built-in defaults. Starting with Reasonix v1.8.1, the user config lives at
~/.reasonix/config.toml on macOS/Linux and
%AppData%\reasonix\config.toml on Windows; see
Configuration paths for migration and related data paths.
Fields marked user/global only are not overridden by ./reasonix.toml.
Provider entries name secrets with api_key_env, while the secret values live in
Reasonix's global <Reasonix home>/.env, shared by CLI and desktop. Project
.env, home .env, inherited shell environment variables, legacy credentials,
and the OS keyring are not provider-key runtime fallbacks; legacy credentials are
only migration sources. Project .env still feeds workspace-scoped,
non-provider ${VAR} expansion for MCP/plugin settings without importing
provider keys or Reasonix control variables. See
Configuration paths for the full config.toml and .env
structure.
For the desktop and CLI usage of visible reasoning language, see Reasoning language.
default_model = "deepseek-flash" # executor; set [agent].planner_model to add a planner
# language = "zh" # ui language; empty = auto-detect from $LANG / $REASONIX_LANG
[ui]
# shortcut_layout = "desktop" # classic|desktop; compatibility setting
# cursor_shape = "bar" # block|underline|bar; CLI/TUI text cursor
show_turn_usage = false # hide per-request token/cost receipts in the TUI; default true
[agent]
reasoning_language = "auto" # visible reasoning text: auto|zh|en
# plan_mode_read_only_commands = ["gh issue view"] # legacy compatibility only; Plan bash now uses Permissions
# planner_model = "deepseek-pro" # optional low-frequency planner
# subagent_model = "deepseek-pro" # optional default for runAs=subagent skills
# subagent_models = { review = "deepseek-pro", security_review = "deepseek-pro" }
# max_subagent_depth = 2 # nested delegation depth; set 1 for the old single-layer boundary
# max_subagent_concurrency = 6 # session-wide sub-agent concurrency (task/fleet/skills)
# max_parallel_writers = 3 # concurrent writers with non-overlapping write_paths
# compact_ratio = 0.80 # sole auto trigger; presets 0.70 / 0.80 / 0.85
# max_output_tokens = 0 # auto: official DeepSeek omits the field (server 384K) until the window is tight
# max_output_tokens = 32768 # optional cost cap; still clipped to physical remaining
# max_output_tokens = 65536 # optional cost cap
# max_output_tokens = -1 # force-omit the wire field; compact if the known auto budget no longer fits
# max_output_tokens never changes compact_ratio; 0 is the provider auto value, not "skip local checks"
[[providers]]
name = "deepseek-flash"
kind = "openai"
base_url = "https://api.deepseek.com"
model = "deepseek-flash"
api_key_env = "DEEPSEEK_API_KEY"
web_search = true
# also preset: deepseek-pro
[tools]
enabled = [] # omit/empty = all built-ins
bash_timeout_seconds = 120 # foreground safety cap; set 0 for no tool-local cap
mcp_startup_timeout_seconds = 30 # background initialize + tools/list safety cap
mcp_call_timeout_seconds = 300 # default MCP call safety cap; per-plugin/tool overrides may raise it
[environment]
enabled = true # inject a stable startup summary of OS, shell, and common tools
offline = false # set true when outbound network access is unavailable; prevents futile retries
# [environment.tools]
# go = "/opt/homebrew/bin/go" # optional explicit trusted path; workspace-local paths are not auto-executed
[skills]
# paths = ["~/my-skills", "../shared/skills"] # extra custom skill roots
# excluded_paths = ["~/.agents/skills"] # hide convention roots without deleting folders
# disabled_skills = ["review"] # hide skills until /skill enable <name>
[permissions]
mode = "ask" # writer fallback when no rule matches: ask|allow|deny
deny = ["Bash(rm -rf*)", "Bash(git push*)"] # hard-blocked in every mode
allow = ["Bash(go test:*)"] # never prompted
[sandbox]
# workspace_root = "" # file-writers confined here; empty = current dir
# allow_write = ["/tmp"] # extra dirs write_file/edit_file/multi_edit/move_file may touch
# forbid_read = ["${HOME}/.ssh"] # paths the agent must not read or list
[serve]
auth_mode = "none" # none|token|password; use auth before binding beyond localhost
# token = "" # optional fixed token; empty token mode generates one at startup
# password_hash = "" # bcrypt hash generated with reasonix serve --hash-password --password '...'
# behind_proxy = false # true only behind a trusted reverse proxy
[[plugins]]
name = "example"
command = "reasonix-plugin-example"
startup_timeout_seconds = 60 # optional initialize + tools/list cap
call_timeout_seconds = 600 # optional per-server MCP call timeout
tool_timeout_seconds = { "generate_video" = 1800 } # optional raw MCP tool names
For the full schema and every field's contract, see SPEC.md §5.
Installed and project-configured MCP servers need no per-tool trust
list. The dedicated two-model Planner may use every non-destructive MCP tool,
even when the server omits readOnlyHint; strict read-only sub-agents still
require readOnlyHint: true and no destructiveHint.
[agent].plan_mode_read_only_commands is also retained for config round trips,
but the main Plan workflow no longer has a separate bash allowlist or trust
prompt. Bash classification and approval use the same Permissions rules in Plan
and Standard mode; the Sandbox remains the filesystem, process, and network
boundary. Dedicated planner and read-only subagent runners keep their own strict
read-only tool registry and foreground-command classifier.
Environment variables
Most day-to-day settings belong in config.toml or the global Reasonix .env
described above. The variables below are process-level advanced switches; set
them before launching Reasonix. Project .env files are not a runtime source for
Reasonix control variables.
CLI telemetry
The CLI can send a once-per-day anonymous active-install ping and bounded,
content-free event counters to https://crash.reasonix.io. Configure the
user-global policy with:
reasonix config telemetry # print the effective mode
reasonix config telemetry auto # default: local interactive TTY only
reasonix config telemetry on # also allow local headless `reasonix run`
reasonix config telemetry off # disable and delete pending counter files
On the first eligible release-build interactive session, Reasonix explains the
exact data boundary and asks once before any telemetry request. The prompt is
[Y/n]: pressing Enter, y, or yes stores auto; n or no stores off
and deletes pending counters. After the choice is saved, enabled reporting is
silent and the prompt is not shown again. If the preference cannot be saved,
nothing is uploaded.
Reporting is always disabled in CI, development builds, and when
DO_NOT_TRACK is set or REASONIX_TELEMETRY=0. Under auto, redirected/piped
or otherwise non-interactive sessions do not report. When no choice has been
saved yet, these ineligible sessions neither prompt nor report. Network failures
after consent are silent and never change stdout, stderr, or the process exit
code; unsent counters stay in a bounded local queue for a later invocation.
The ping contains a dedicated random 128-bit CLI install ID, CLI version, OS,
architecture, and the cli surface marker. Counter batches use that same ID for
daily active-install deduplication and contain only fixed buckets such as CLI
surface, permission/session mode, turn latency, finish reason, cache-hit
range, generic Provider/tool error class, compaction, recovery counters, and
normalized UI language. This ID is separate from the desktop install ID and is
not an account, hardware, repository, or session identifier.
Reasonix never uploads prompts, answers, reasoning, tool names/arguments/output, paths, repositories/branches, session IDs, exact token or cost values, Provider/model names, base URLs, or environment variables.
CLI crash reports
An unhandled Go panic that reaches the CLI entrypoint is saved locally as a sanitized report under
<Reasonix home>/cli-crash-reports. Reasonix keeps at most 10 files with owner-only
permissions. The panic value is never serialized. Absolute source paths become
<path>/<file>.go:<line>, function arguments are removed, and the same secret,
token, email, and long-identifier scrubbers run both when saving and immediately
before sending.
Crash reports are never uploaded automatically. Review and manage them with:
reasonix report # preview newest; prompt before sending on a TTY
reasonix report list # list local reports
reasonix report show [ID] # preview without sending
reasonix report send [ID] # explicit send; delete locally only after success
reasonix report delete [ID] # delete without sending
Piped or redirected reasonix report calls only preview and never prompt or
send. The CLI telemetry setting does not auto-send or auto-delete
these separately reviewed reports. Runtime fatal throws, operating-system kills,
and panics in unwrapped background goroutines cannot be recovered by Go and do
not produce this local report.
Web frontend
For local use, reasonix web starts the browser UI and opens it in your default
browser. Inside an interactive CLI session, /web snapshots the current session,
restores the terminal, and opens an explicit /sessions/<id>#token=... deep link.
Even a never-used session keeps its reserved ID without forcing an empty
transcript onto disk, so the first Web turn continues the same session identity.
cd your-project
reasonix web
Use reasonix web --no-open when you want to start the foreground Web server
and print its URL without opening a browser tab. The lower-level
reasonix serve command starts the same engine without opening a browser by
default. It remains the right entry point for remote development boxes,
supervisors, tunnels, reverse proxies, and shareable authenticated sessions.
reasonix web starts at 127.0.0.1:8787, automatically tries 8788, 8789, and
so on when a port is busy (up to 100 retries), and defaults to a newly generated
token even when [serve].auth_mode is none. Each live process registers a
single-writer heartbeat file under <Reasonix home>/server/instances/; clean
shutdown removes its own file, while later instances lazily remove records whose
owner process is confirmed dead. Multiple Web instances can therefore share one
Reasonix home without overwriting registry state. The process stays attached to
the terminal; stop it with Ctrl-C.
An explicit reasonix web --auth none disables the default token and should be
used only when the listener is intentionally trusted. reasonix serve keeps its
backward-compatible, config-driven auth_mode = "none" default on
127.0.0.1:8787.
Without authentication (auth_mode = "none", the serve default) reads stay
open on the listener, but every state-changing request, approvals included,
needs the launch token:
- Serve writes the token to a 0600 file under
<Reasonix home>/remote/and prints only its path next to anapprovals:link; append#token=<file contents>to open it in a browser. A managed launch with--token-filenames that file instead. Token mode prints itsshare:link the same way. - Send it as
Authorization: Bearer <token>, or open the link once so the page sets its cookie. Without it the request answers 403launch_token_required. - Prefer
--token-fileover--token: argv is visible to other processes, sandboxed ones included. A plaintext[serve].tokenin the global config is readable from inside the sandbox; keep the secret in a file. - On macOS and Linux the OS sandbox denies the remote state directory and any
--token-file. Windows has no bash sandbox, so there nothing keeps an agent command from reading the file. [serve]is read from the user config only; a projectreasonix.tomlcannot set it.
If you bind Serve outside loopback, expose it through a tunnel, or put it behind a reverse proxy, enable authentication before sharing the URL:
reasonix serve --auth token
reasonix serve --addr 0.0.0.0:8787 --auth token
reasonix serve --auth password --password 'temporary-password'
Token mode prints a share URL with #token=...; the Web page exchanges the
fragment for an HttpOnly cookie before starting API or SSE requests, keeping the
token out of request URLs, browser history, referrers, and access logs. Pass --token or set
[serve].token to reuse a stable token. Password mode requires either
--password at startup or a stored bcrypt hash:
reasonix serve --hash-password --password 'strong-password'
# <Reasonix home>/config.toml
[serve]
auth_mode = "password" # none|token|password
password_hash = "$2a$12$..."
behind_proxy = true # only behind a trusted reverse proxy
The web UI exposes chat, tool approvals, session history, rewind/fork/summarize,
model and reasoning-effort controls, Goal, a live todo panel fed by the
todo_write tool, extension status/card/form/notification surfaces, and
provider balance when configured. Extension-hosted providers appear in the
model picker. Serve can keep several sessions active at once: creating or
resuming another session detaches a busy turn instead of cancelling it, and the
session list continues to report that background activity. Run /reload while
idle to fail-atomically reload extension sidecars and the runtime generation
without restarting Serve. Use --model, --max-steps, or --resume for
one-off launches; otherwise serve uses the user-global default_model.
If the selected Provider has no saved API key, a loopback-bound Serve still starts and shows a Provider setup page instead of failing before the browser can connect. After authentication, enter the key there; Reasonix writes it to this host's global credential file with restricted permissions, rebuilds the active controller in the same process, and opens the normal UI. The credential-writing endpoint is disabled for non-loopback listeners. For a remote SSH window, "this host" means the remote host reached through the SSH tunnel; the key is not copied from the desktop machine.
Editor integrations over ACP
reasonix acp exposes Reasonix as an ACP v1 stdio agent for editors and other
host clients. The dedicated ACP editor integration guide covers
startup, capability negotiation, session lifecycle, independent model/work/
collaboration/approval controls, client filesystem and terminal capabilities,
MCP servers, permission requests, and the Reasonix mid-turn steering extension.
Remote SSH
The remote module runs Reasonix on a remote host and reaches it over your own
SSH connection — VS Code Remote-SSH style. It bootstraps a persistent headless
reasonix serve on the remote host, forwards a local loopback port to it, and
opens the existing serve web client through that tunnel. The agent, its tools,
and its files all live on the remote host at full fidelity; nothing runs through
a lossy file proxy. V1 supports Linux and macOS remote hosts.
The dedicated Remote sessions guide covers host
configuration ([remote] in config.toml), SSH-config resolution and import,
the reasonix remote CLI, the remote serve bootstrap and its install ladder,
the remote session lifecycle and takeover, the desktop remote workspace, the
remote and local-proxy credential modes, connection failure semantics, and
troubleshooting.
Custom OpenAI-compatible providers
In the desktop app, open Settings -> Model -> Access -> Add model service -> Custom provider for proxies, aggregators, or self-hosted services that speak the OpenAI-compatible chat API or Anthropic-compatible Messages API.
For common providers, choose Add model service -> Recommended preset instead.
New official DeepSeek entries use Chat Completions by default and enable
independent web_search; the same DEEPSEEK_API_KEY works across supported
protocols. On startup, Reasonix upgrades unmodified legacy
deepseek-flash / deepseek-pro entries that still use the official endpoint
and standard key/model settings. Customized official Chat Completions entries
keep their protocol choice and show an Upgrade protocol action in Settings.
Proxy endpoints, custom headers, and capability overrides do not trigger a
protocol migration. Separately, the version 11 catalog upgrade appends
deepseek-flash once to existing official model lists, including customized
lists. It preserves the selected/default model and later user deletion. Existing
separately named deepseek-anthropic entries remain compatible, but that
redundant preset is no longer offered for new access. Reasonix can prefill editable custom-provider entries for Kimi CN,
Kimi Global,
Kimi Coding Plan, MiMo API, MiMo Anthropic, MiMo Token Plan CN/SGP/AMS and their
Anthropic-compatible variants, MiniMax CN/Global API, MiniMax CN/Global
Anthropic, GLM CN, Z.AI Global, GLM/Z.AI Coding Plan OpenAI-compatible and
Anthropic-compatible endpoints, OpenCode Go, OpenCode Go Anthropic, OpenCode Go
DeepSeek Anthropic, OpenCode Go DeepSeek Responses, OpenCode Zen
Anthropic, Qwen/DashScope CN/Global, Qwen Coding Plan CN/Global
OpenAI-compatible and Anthropic-compatible endpoints, StepFun OpenAI-compatible
and Anthropic-compatible endpoints, NovitaAI, GMI Cloud, Vercel AI Gateway,
HuggingFace Router, ModelScope, NVIDIA NIM, KiloCode, and Ollama Cloud. Plan names describe
the access/payment route; they include CN/Global only when the provider exposes
distinct regional endpoints. Kimi Coding Plan is therefore a dedicated plan
endpoint, while Kimi direct API is split into CN and Global. The preset path
usually needs only the provider API key: the key value is stored in Reasonix home
.env, while config.toml stores the endpoint, model list, key
environment-variable name, context window, model capability metadata, proxy bypass
for China-only endpoints, MiniMax reasoning_split, GLM/MiniMax thinking
heuristics, Anthropic-compatible Bearer auth where needed, Ollama Cloud
max-effort support, and OpenCode Go per-model reasoning overrides. New official DeepSeek Anthropic, Responses, and Chat Completions catalogs offer
deepseek-flash and deepseek-v4-pro. The retired deepseek-v4-flash and
deepseek-v4-flash-vision-exp IDs remain valid for saved references. Settings derives image support from
model capability metadata. Each model also has an Image input Auto / On / Off
selector. For an ID-only relay list, unknown means unrecognized, not confirmed
text-only: select On after confirming support with the relay, then save. See the
image input guide.
Composer
and @ user images are sent as official visual input using the three documented
shapes: inline base64 data: URLs for local files, http(s) image URLs as-is,
and Files API file-api- ids (local images over 32 MiB on official DeepSeek are
uploaded automatically). Chat Completions uses image_url or file, Anthropic
uses image+source.base64|url|file, and Responses uses input_image.
Flash and its retired aliases accept images; V4 Pro remains text-only. The dedicated
OpenCode Go DeepSeek Anthropic and DeepSeek Responses presets expose the verified
Flash routes and enable provider-side web_search by default; the Responses
variant uses stateless context replay. The existing mixed OpenCode Go Anthropic
preset remains scoped to Qwen and MiniMax so server tools are not sent to
unverified models. DeepSeek Pro remains on the Chat Completions preset because
live Anthropic and Responses requests currently fail in the OpenCode Go upstream
conversion. The OpenCode Go preset includes its native kimi-k3 subscription
route with image input,
high/max reasoning effort, and a 1,048,576-token context window. Existing untouched
OpenCode Go preset installs are upgraded automatically. Since config schema 13,
standard Go connections use the documented inference endpoints:
/inference/go/openai/v1 for Chat/Responses and /inference/go/anthropic for Messages.
Discovery uses /inference/go/v1/models. Existing Go Chat connections containing
DeepSeek gain deepseek-v4.1-flash once, without changing their selected model,
credential reference, or custom fields. Later model deletions survive restarts;
custom request endpoints and custom bodies require manual review and stay unchanged.
V4.1 Flash uses DeepSeek thinking (disabled/low/high/max, default high)
and preserves reasoning across tool calls and subsequent turns. Old /zen/go
routes remain recognized, and both route generations send a stable conversation
header for OpenCode cache routing. The Kimi CN and Kimi Global direct-API presets also include
kimi-k3 with image input, a 1,048,576-token context window, and the official
low/high/max effort scale (default max). For the official K3 endpoints,
Reasonix preserves complete assistant messages across turns, sends output limits
as max_completion_tokens, and omits K3's fixed sampling parameters. Untouched
legacy Kimi direct-API catalogs are upgraded automatically without changing the
default model; custom catalogs and endpoints are preserved. After adding a
preset, open its provider card if you need to change models, headers, endpoint,
or compatibility settings.
Fill API address with the provider endpoint that should receive the standard chat path. In this mode Reasonix previews and sends chat requests to:
<API address>/chat/completions
Enable Full URL when the service gives you a complete request URL, for
example https://gateway.example.com/v1/chat/completions. Reasonix then sends
chat requests directly to that URL and does not append /chat/completions. The
preview under the field shows the exact request URL that will be used.
Model discovery uses the API address to try likely model-list URLs such as
/models and /v1/models. If the gateway requires a separate model-list
endpoint, open Compatibility settings and set models_url, for example
https://gateway.example.com/v1/models. If discovery is not available, fill the
model list manually.
Full URL still uses the OpenAI-compatible chat request body. It does not switch the request schema to the OpenAI Responses API.
Compatibility settings
The Compatibility settings (usually leave unchanged) section is for gateways whose authentication, model-list endpoint, or reasoning/thinking request shape differs from the normal OpenAI-compatible defaults. Leave these fields at their defaults unless the provider documentation or a proxy error tells you otherwise. For Anthropic-compatible services, such as some coding-plan endpoints, choose Anthropic-compatible as the connection protocol before saving.
| Field | What it controls | When to change it |
|---|---|---|
api_key_env |
The environment-variable name used for this provider's API key. Desktop-saved key values are stored in Reasonix home .env under this name; the TOML config stores only the name. |
Change it when several providers need distinct keys, or leave it blank for a service that does not require an API key. |
models_url |
The URL used only for model discovery. Chat requests still use the API address or Full URL above. | Set it when /models or /v1/models is not where the gateway exposes its model list. |
| Extra request headers | Static HTTP headers, one Header: value per line. |
Use for gateways such as OpenRouter that require HTTP-Referer, X-Title, or similar site headers. Keep bearer/API keys in the key field instead of duplicating them here. |
| Extra request body | A JSON object merged into the top-level chat request body. | Use only for provider-specific flags such as {"enable_thinking": true}. Reasonix still owns core fields such as model, messages, tools, stream, and thinking, and null values are rejected. |
| Authorization: Bearer | For Anthropic-compatible providers, sends the saved API key as Authorization: Bearer <key> instead of x-api-key. |
Enable it only when the gateway documents Bearer auth, such as MiniMax Global or Vercel AI Gateway. |
| Model capability mode | Which reasoning request protocol Reasonix should use for this provider. | Keep Auto-detect unless the gateway is misdetected or the model docs require a specific reasoning format. |
| Thinking override | Provider-specific override for thinking.type. |
Keep Auto unless the backend documents enabled, disabled, or adaptive. Unsupported values can make some OpenAI-compatible gateways reject the request. |
| Balance URL | Optional endpoint for wallet/balance lookup. | Set it when the provider exposes a balance endpoint and you want the desktop status bar to show it. |
| Context window | The provider-wide token budget Reasonix uses for automatic context cleanup. 0 disables automatic compaction. |
Set it to the provider's model context limit; use a per-model override below when selected models differ. |
Each selected model also has an optional Context window input. Leave it blank
to inherit the provider-wide value, or enter a positive token count to override
that value for this model. This avoids premature compaction for long-context
models and provider errors for shorter-context models sharing the same endpoint.
Use the context-window limit from the model documentation, not the maximum output
tokens. For example, 128K commonly means 128000; if the provider documents
131072, use that exact value. Values below 16384 show a non-blocking warning
because they can trigger frequent compaction and reduce cache hit rates.
Self-hosted runtimes: the runtime's limit, not the model's
For a local server, the number that governs the request is the runtime's
configured context length, which is usually far below what the model was
trained for. Ollama serves its own 4096-token default unless
OLLAMA_CONTEXT_LENGTH is set or the Modelfile carries PARAMETER num_ctx, so a
262K-context model routinely runs at 4096. Its OpenAI-compatible /v1 surface
has no field for num_ctx, so the value cannot be raised per request and has to
be set on the server.
Runtimes differ in what they do when the prompt exceeds that limit:
| Runtime | Prompt over the limit |
|---|---|
| Ollama | 200 OK, prompt silently truncated |
| LM Studio | depends on its context-overflow policy; truncateMiddle and rollingWindow truncate silently, and an OpenAI-compatible client cannot select the policy per request |
| llama.cpp server | HTTP 400, the request exceeds the available context size |
| vLLM | HTTP 400, the engine prompt length ... exceeds the max_model_len |
The last two fail loudly, so you will see them. The silent cases are the dangerous ones, because the symptom does not look like truncation:
- the model ignores its tools, or invents tool names that do not exist — the tool schemas are the largest part of the prefix and the first thing cut;
- it answers as though it never saw the system prompt or your actual question;
- it reads as a weak model rather than a misconfigured server.
Reasonix detects a silently truncated prompt from the token counts the provider
reports and warns once per session. Check the server first — ollama ps shows
the context each loaded model is actually running with — then set Context
window to that same number.
Model capability mode options:
| Option | Effect |
|---|---|
| Auto-detect (recommended) | Reasonix chooses the request shape from model capability metadata and endpoint detection. |
| DeepSeek thinking | Uses DeepSeek-style thinking control, including thinking.type and DeepSeek-supported reasoning depth. |
| OpenAI reasoning | Uses the standard OpenAI-compatible reasoning_effort levels. |
| Plain chat | Sends no reasoning or thinking control fields. Use this for text-only proxies that reject reasoning parameters. |
Thinking override options:
| Option | Effect |
|---|---|
| Auto (provider default) | Does not write an explicit provider-level thinking override. Reasonix uses the provider/model default behavior. |
| Enabled | Sends thinking.type = "enabled" for compatible providers. |
| Disabled | Sends thinking.type = "disabled" for compatible providers. On DeepSeek-style providers this also avoids sending a reasoning depth hint. |
| Adaptive (self-adjusting) | Sends or preserves thinking.type = "adaptive" only for providers that document adaptive thinking, such as MiniMax-M3-style endpoints. |
Some OpenAI-compatible gateways require non-standard top-level request body
fields. Add them with extra_body on the provider entry:
[[providers]]
name = "spark"
kind = "openai"
base_url = "https://maas-coding-api.cn-huabei-1.xf-yun.com/v2"
models = ["xopglm52"]
api_key_env = "SPARK_API_KEY"
extra_body = { enable_thinking = true }
extra_body is merged into the chat JSON request body. Reasonix keeps core
fields such as model, messages, tools, stream, and thinking under its
own control.
Desktop hooks
Desktop hooks run local commands at lifecycle events such as SessionStart,
UserPromptSubmit, PreToolUse, and PreCompact. A successful SessionStart
hook may write plain text to stdout, or return JSON with
hookSpecificOutput.additionalContext; Reasonix injects that text once into the
next real user turn as <hook-context event="SessionStart">...</hook-context>.
This is intended for plugin or workflow bootstrap context, including
Superpowers-style startup instructions, without baking that workflow into
Reasonix's system prompt.
Plugin packages can provide this startup context through
hooks/session-start-codex or a plugin-root CLAUDE.md. Claude-style
.claude/settings.json command hooks are also mapped to matching Reasonix hook
events.
The injected hook context is dynamic current-turn context. It does not change the stable system prompt, memory prefix, or tool schema, though dynamic content can still reduce cache reuse for that turn. The detailed desktop hook schema and loading model are documented in the Chinese desktop hooks guide.
Keyboard shortcuts
Shortcuts are documented by client because users usually look for the keys that
work in the surface they are using. On Desktop, Shift+Tab toggles Plan and
permission presets stay in the composer menu. In the CLI, Shift+Tab cycles
Read only → Workspace write → YOLO → Plan, while Ctrl+Y toggles YOLO
directly. YOLO is the visible label for the canonical danger-full-access
permission preset. Desktop paste stays on the platform paste key; in the CLI,
terminal-native text paste and application-owned image paste use separate shortcuts.
[ui].shortcut_layout is still accepted for old configs, but the shortcut
behavior below is unified across layouts.
For CLI/TUI text input, [ui].cursor_shape accepts underline, block, or
bar. The default is bar: it remains easy to locate without covering
double-width CJK characters in mixed-language input. Set it to block for a
traditional terminal cursor or underline for a lower-profile cursor. This
setting does not change desktop or web text fields.
Desktop GUI
The Desktop Todo shelf derives its label from both todo_write and the owning
tab's runtime: active work is In progress, an approval or question is
Waiting for input, and an idle/restored current item is Ready to continue.
The latter exposes a Continue action that rechecks the captured tab before
sending, so a rapid tab switch cannot route stale work into another session.
Desktop shortcuts are managed from Settings → Shortcuts. Pick a configurable
row, press a new key combination, and Reasonix saves it for the desktop app.
Standard editing shortcuts such as Undo and Redo are shown as locked rows because
the WebView's native text history uses those platform chords. Conflicting
bindings are rejected so one shortcut never triggers two actions. Press ? or
use the help button in the topic bar to open the shortcuts sheet; it is generated
from the same shortcut registry, so it reflects any custom bindings.
Global shortcuts:
| Key or control | What it does | Notes |
|---|---|---|
Cmd+K on macOS, Ctrl+K on Windows/Linux |
Toggles the command palette | The palette focuses search when it opens; Esc closes it. |
Cmd+, on macOS, Ctrl+, on Windows/Linux |
Opens Settings | Use Shortcuts in Settings to customize desktop bindings. |
Cmd+W on macOS, Ctrl+W on Windows/Linux |
Closes the active top tab | The last tab is kept by the normal close-tab guard. |
Cmd+B / Ctrl+B |
Shows or hides the left sidebar | Same action as clicking the sidebar toggle. |
Cmd+Shift+B / Ctrl+Shift+B |
Expands or collapses the most recent shell output | Same action as clicking the collapsed shell-output hint. |
Cmd+1-Cmd+9 on macOS, Ctrl+1-Ctrl+9 elsewhere |
Jumps to the matching visible chat in the sidebar | Hold Cmd/Ctrl briefly to reveal the numbered badges. Existing custom shortcuts that already use the same key take precedence. |
Cmd++, Cmd+-, Cmd+0 on macOS; Ctrl++, Ctrl+-, Ctrl+0 elsewhere |
Increases, decreases, or resets text size | = is accepted for the plus key on keyboards that report it that way. |
? |
Opens the keyboard shortcuts sheet | The sheet shows the current effective desktop bindings. |
Composer shortcuts:
| Key or control | What it does | Notes |
|---|---|---|
Enter |
Sends the current message | IME composition confirmation is left alone. |
Shift+Enter |
Inserts a newline | The composer keeps focus. |
Shift+Tab |
Toggles Plan on/off | Plan changes the workflow instruction while the selected permission preset remains active. |
Cmd+Z on macOS, Ctrl+Z on Windows/Linux |
Undoes the latest composer edit | Native typing stays in the WebView history; Reasonix-managed paste, cut, folded blocks, and structured tokens are restored as complete transactions. |
Cmd+Shift+Z on macOS, Ctrl+Shift+Z on Windows/Linux |
Redoes the latest composer edit | Uses the platform-native editing history. |
Cmd+V on macOS, Ctrl+V on Windows/Linux |
Pastes clipboard content | Clipboard images are attached; images can also be dropped into the composer. On official DeepSeek, deepseek-flash and deepseek-v4-flash accept images natively; V4 Pro stays text-only. |
Plain Up / Down at the prompt boundary |
Recalls older or newer submitted prompts | Modified arrows and native text navigation stay with the textarea. |
Esc while a turn or compaction is running |
Cancels the cancellable foreground operation | A compaction stop preserves the draft and queued messages; an unanswered turn restores its draft. |
Menus and controls:
| Key or control | What it does | Notes |
|---|---|---|
Up / Down in slash, @, or past-chat menus |
Moves the highlighted item | Past-chat search uses the same navigation keys. |
Enter / Tab in those menus |
Accepts the highlighted item | Directory-like entries can keep the menu open for the next level. |
Esc in those menus |
Closes the current menu or returns from past-chat search | Regular typing continues after the menu closes. |
| Read only / Workspace write / Full access | Selects the current session permission preset | Settings controls only the default for new sessions. |
| Tool approval card | Left / Right, Enter, 1-3, Esc |
Move between Allow once, Allow for this session, and Deny. The default is Allow once. |
| Plan approval card | Left / Right, Enter, 1-3, Esc |
Move between Revise plan, Start execution, and Exit plan. The default highlighted action is Start execution. |
| Plan control | Toggles Plan on/off | Same mode as Shift+Tab. |
| Goal item in the collaboration menu | Starts, views, or clears Goal | Goal is not in any keyboard cycle. |
CLI / TUI
The composer uses theme-coloured top and bottom borders and a slim bar cursor by
default. Long drafts grow to the available maximum height; once they overflow,
wheel events inside the composer scroll the draft without moving the insertion
cursor, while wheel events in the transcript keep scrolling the conversation.
Use /theme auto|light|dark to select the background mode, or /theme <style>
to select one of the named accent palettes shown by bare /theme.
Long to-do and question panels share a bounded area above the composer and
status footer. Scroll over that area or use Alt+PageUp / Alt+PageDown to read
the hidden rows; keyboard navigation keeps the selected option visible. The
keyboard shortcuts also work when mouse capture is off and in Termux.
The responsive footer keeps the active permission preset, Plan state, and current
interaction state on the left. On wider terminals, model and effort
stay together on the right; a second row shows available Git identity, cache hit
rate, context use, compaction headroom, jobs, and balance. ready is the idle
composer state, not a model-health check. Pickers, approvals, image paste, shell
mode, and other active interactions replace it. Narrow terminals move, wrap, or
compact whole groups; visible labels follow /language.
Chat and transcript shortcuts:
| Key or command | What it does | Notes |
|---|---|---|
Enter |
Sends the current message | While a turn is running, non-empty input is durably queued as a follow-up before the composer clears. |
Ctrl+Enter or /steer <text> |
Adds guidance to the active turn | The guidance is persisted first; if the turn cannot accept it, it remains a normal follow-up. |
Shift+Enter, Alt+Enter, or Ctrl+J |
Inserts a newline | Plain Enter is reserved for send/confirm. |
Plain Up / Down while idle |
Recalls older or newer submitted prompts | In a running turn, the same keys navigate queued follow-up feedback. |
PageUp / PageDown |
Scrolls the transcript | Works regardless of the current chat state. |
Ctrl+Home / Ctrl+End |
Jumps to the top or bottom of the transcript | Useful after long tool output. |
Ctrl+L or /cls |
Clears only the visible transcript | The LLM context, session file, tools, memory, and plugins stay loaded. Use /clear when you want to discard the conversation context. |
Esc |
Backs out of the current action | It un-sends a just-submitted turn before any reply, cancels a running turn, or clears non-empty input. |
Double Esc on an empty idle composer |
Opens the rewind picker | Same entry point as /rewind. |
| Transcript text selection | Copies transcript text | Releasing an in-app drag writes through the verified native clipboard path in a local session (pbcopy on macOS, the available Wayland/X11 tool on Linux, or the Windows clipboard). SSH falls back to OSC 52 and labels the fallback instead of claiming native success. Ctrl+C/Super+C/Meta+C or right-clicking the active selection copies it again. |
| Composer text selection | Selects, copies, or replaces draft text | Releasing an in-app drag copies the selection through the same verified clipboard path as transcript text. Typing or pasting replaces the selection; arrow keys collapse it. |
| Right-click with no active selection | Pastes clipboard text locally | In a local session with in-app mouse capture on, Reasonix reads text only and routes it through the normal bracketed-paste handling. Over SSH, use the terminal paste shortcut because the remote process cannot read the local clipboard; /mouse restores the terminal's native right-click menu. Right-click with an active selection still copies that selection. |
/mouse |
Toggles in-app mouse capture | Off hands the mouse back to your terminal, restoring its native click-drag selection and right-click context menu, at the cost of in-app drag-select, the transcript scrollbar, and wheel-scroll. Set REASONIX_DISABLE_MOUSE=1 to start every session with it off. Remote (SSH) sessions start with capture off so native selection works out of the box; REASONIX_DISABLE_MOUSE=0 forces capture on everywhere. Over SSH the TUI also enables synchronized output (mode 2026) so repaints do not flicker on the round trip; set REASONIX_DISABLE_SYNC_OUTPUT=1 to opt out. |
Ctrl+C |
Copies, cancels, clears, or quits | Copies an active transcript or composer selection first. Otherwise it cancels a running turn, clears non-empty input, or quits on a second empty-composer press. |
Ctrl+D |
Quits the TUI | Immediate quit. |
| Your terminal's text-paste shortcut | Pastes text | Text stays on the terminal's bracketed-paste path (Cmd+V on macOS, commonly Ctrl+Shift+V on Linux, and the terminal's configured shortcut elsewhere). Reasonix consumes the resulting paste event and never probes for an image first. |
Ctrl+V on macOS/Linux; Alt+V on Windows |
Pastes a clipboard image | Image paste is a separate application action. The footer shows Pasting image… while the clipboard is read, then inserts an editable [image #N] token at the cursor. |
/paste-image |
Pastes a clipboard image | Command form of the same image-only action. |
A line starting with ! |
Runs a shell command directly | The command runs locally without asking the model. |
/queue list shows bounded previews without loading full bodies. Use /queue show|edit|delete|move, /queue pause|resume, and /queue retry|refresh to
inspect or manage pending work. After crash recovery the inbox is paused, so
review it and run /queue resume before dispatch continues. Each item is
limited to 4 MiB; a session accepts at most 64 items and 64 MiB total.
Mode and display shortcuts:
| Key or command | What it does | Notes |
|---|---|---|
Shift+Tab |
Cycles Read only → Workspace write → YOLO → Plan | YOLO applies danger-full-access; leaving Plan returns to Read only. |
Ctrl+Y |
Toggles YOLO | Entering YOLO applies danger-full-access; pressing it again restores the prior safe permission preset. |
| `--permission-mode read-only | workspace-write | danger-full-access` |
| `/theme [auto | light | dark |
Ctrl+O |
Toggles verbose reasoning display | Also available through /verbose. |
Ctrl+B |
Expands or collapses long shell output | Long shell-output hint lines can also be clicked in the transcript; text selection is handled in-app while the full-screen TUI has mouse reporting enabled. |
/goal <objective>, /goal status, /goal pause, /goal resume, /goal clear |
Starts, checks, pauses, resumes, or clears Goal | A Goal is unbounded unless [agent].goal_token_budget is set. |
/migrate, /migrate --from <legacy-dir> |
Retries legacy migration or imports sessions from a chosen v0.x source | Use --from for custom Windows v0.52 install/data directories; it imports sessions only. See Configuration paths. |
Picker and approval shortcuts:
| Context | Keys | What they do |
|---|---|---|
Slash or @ completion |
Up / Down, Ctrl+P / Ctrl+N, Tab / Enter, Esc |
Move, accept, or close the completion menu. |
| Tool approval prompt | y/1, a/2, p/3, n/4, Enter, Esc, Ctrl+C |
Allow once, allow for session, persist allow, deny, accept default allow once, deny, or cancel the turn. |
| Ask question card | Up/Down or j/k, Left/Right or h/l, Space, Enter, 1-9, Esc, Ctrl+C |
Navigate answers/tabs, toggle multi-select answers, submit/activate, pick numbered options, dismiss, or cancel the turn. |
| Rewind picker | Up/Down or j/k, Enter, b, c, d, f, s, u, Esc |
Choose a turn, apply both/conversation/code/fork/summarize actions, or go back/close. |
| Model, provider, or resume picker | Up/Down or Ctrl+P/Ctrl+N; j/k while search is empty; type to filter; Enter; Esc |
Search, select an item, or close the picker. Once search input starts, j/k become query text. /provider opens that provider's model list. |
| MCP import picker | Up/Down or j/k, Space, Enter, Esc / Ctrl+C |
Move, select servers, import selected servers, or cancel. |
| MCP manager | Up/Down or j/k, Enter, Left/Right or h/l, r, number keys, q / Ctrl+C |
Navigate server lists/details, refresh, choose actions, or close. |
/clear confirmation |
Arrow keys or j/k / Tab, Enter, y, n, Esc / Ctrl+C |
Toggle Clear/Cancel, confirm clear, or cancel. |
Mode meanings:
| Mode | Meaning |
|---|---|
| Read only | Reads the workspace; writes and external side effects require a scoped authorization. |
| Workspace write | Writes inside the workspace and private session temporary directory. This is the default. |
| Full access | Runs as the current OS user without Reasonix filesystem or network sandboxing. Explicit host deny rules still apply before launch. |
| Plan | Plans before implementation. State-changing actions are blocked until approval, including Full access, proxy tools, and subagents. After approval, ordinary permissions and sandbox rules still apply. |
| Goal | Pursues a saved objective until complete, blocked, or cleared. |
Permissions & sandbox
The active permission preset supplies the enforced filesystem boundary for
Bash, file tools, background processes, and subagents. workspace-write runs
ordinary builds, tests, pipes, command substitutions, and inline scripts without
syntax-based prompts while confining writes to the workspace and private session
temporary directory. A write outside that boundary can be allowed once or for
the displayed directory during the current session. Permanent approval is not
offered.
Configured deny rules always win. Installed MCP servers and plugins are trusted
in workspace-write; unknown side-effect capabilities in read-only still need
authorization. If the platform sandbox is unavailable, restricted presets fail
closed instead of offering an unconfined retry.
Permissions are policy (which calls to allow / prompt). The sandbox is
enforcement: they are two layers. A permitted call still cannot write outside
the approved roots. The file-writers (write_file / edit_file / multi_edit / move_file)
refuse any path outside [sandbox] workspace_root (default: the current dir, so
edits stay in the project), resolving symlinks and .. so a link can't tunnel
out. Writing outside the workspace is an interactive extend write access
approval (once / this session / add to project reasonix.toml / deny), not a
sandbox escape. Bash must name those directories with additional_write_dirs
plus a justification; the host does not infer paths from the command text.
Headless reasonix run does not prompt: pass --add-dir or configure
[sandbox].allow_write. The whole home directory can be approved with a
high-risk warning; the filesystem root and Reasonix session/state paths cannot. forbid_read optionally hides sensitive files or directories from the agent's
read/list/search tools; use absolute paths or ${HOME} / ${VAR} references,
not ~, because config expansion is environment-variable based. bash is
itself jailed by default when an OS sandbox is available ([sandbox] bash,
Seatbelt on macOS and bubblewrap on Linux):
commands may write only those same roots plus platform-specific command
temp/cache roots, cannot read configured forbid_read roots while the OS
sandbox is active, and reach the network only when [sandbox] network is set.
Reasonix always removes saved provider and bot credential variables from tool
subprocess environments. On macOS and Linux it also automatically adds the
global credential .env to the runtime read-deny boundary. Windows does not:
it has no OS-level shell sandbox, and denying the current user would also deny
the host settings process. Project .env files keep their existing
workspace-scoped behavior.
Git metadata is host-protected. Inside the bash sandbox, the Git configuration and hooks of the workspace repository stay read-only, because the host's own git reads them.
The repository is the one git itself discovers from each writable root. A
.git file is followed to the gitdir it names the way git resolves it,
relative to the file with symlinks followed, so the protection lands on what
git will read. Protected:
.gititself, the gitdir, the common dir and every symlink on the way to them: none can be removed, renamed or replaced by a symlink.config,config.worktree,commondirandhooks/of the gitdir and of the common dir.config,config.worktreeandcommondirof each existingworktrees/*entry, andconfigandconfig.worktreeof entries created later.config,config.worktree,commondirandhooks/of each submodule gitdir undermodules/, existing or created later.
Everything else under .git (objects, refs, index, logs, lock files) stays
writable, so add, commit, branch, checkout, merge, rebase, stash, tag and
worktree creation keep working. These operations change:
| Operation | In the sandbox |
|---|---|
git config without --global, git remote add / set-url, git branch -m, git submodule init, git submodule update --init, git sparse-checkout init, git maintenance register, git init in an existing repository |
Fails |
Installing a hook into .git/hooks |
Fails |
git worktree remove / prune of a linked worktree that existed before the command |
Fails; one added in the same command can be removed |
Cloning a new submodule (git submodule add, git submodule update for one not yet cloned) |
Fails on macOS; on Linux the clone lands but its config entry does not |
git branch --set-upstream-to, git checkout --track, git push -u |
Reports the refused write but exits 0; no upstream is recorded |
To add or initialise submodules, run it outside the sandbox (in a terminal, or through an approved danger-full-access retry); updating submodules that are already cloned works inside it.
When a command's output names one of these paths, the bash result says so with
sandbox.git_metadata_protected, also when git exited 0. additional_write_dirs cannot grant it.
A protected file that already has another hard link refuses every confined
command with sandbox.git_metadata_linked, because a write through the other
name would reach it; the user removes that link outside the sandbox.
Limits:
- On Linux, bubblewrap can only mount over paths that exist and cannot pin a
symlink. Creating an absent
commondir,config.worktreeor hooks directory, or swapping a symlink on thegitdir:path, is not stopped there. - Closing that on Linux is the host's side: its own git has to pin its git and common directories instead of rediscovering them.
- Existing worktree and submodule gitdirs get exact rules, up to 128 each on macOS and 512 on Linux.
- On macOS, patterns cover the rest and gitdirs created later. They skip
refs/andlogs/, so a branch or tag namedconfigorhooksstays writable, but a new submodule namedhooksis protected whole. - On macOS with more than 128 worktrees,
git worktree addfails; past 128 submodules each command starts about 0.1 s slower. - On Linux, past 512 gitdirs the whole
worktrees/ormodules/directory is mounted read-only, and a command can cause that by plantingHEADfiles. A command can likewise plant a submodule gitdir with a hard-linked config, after which every confined command is refused until the user removes it. - A repository created by a sandboxed command is protected from the next command on.
- A
.gitmade unrecognisable to git (for example a corruptedHEAD) sends git's discovery further up. - A repository nested in the workspace that is not a submodule gitdir under
modules/is not protected, including one a command creates and records as a gitlink. - The host can run such a repository's configuration through its gitlink unless the host's own git excludes it.
- Hooks that
core.hooksPathpoints outside.git, and filesinclude.pathnames, are ordinary workspace files. - Windows has no shell sandbox, so none of this is enforced there.
Session-private temporary directory. Within one logical chat session, Bash
commands share a private temporary directory so consecutive calls can exchange
files through $TMPDIR (and, on Linux under bubblewrap, through literal
/tmp). No user setup is required: Reasonix automatically exports TMPDIR,
TMP, and TEMP for Bash and client-owned ACP terminals. The directory is
created lazily, is never the host public temporary root, and is rotated on
/new, /clear, resume of another session, and branch switches.
Model/settings hot rebuilds keep the same directory. Temporary files are not
durable storage: resume across process restarts does not restore them, and
scripts that need long-lived data should write into the workspace or a
user-specified path.
Reasonix-generated and project scripts should use the standard temporary
environment variables rather than hard-coding /tmp; users should not set
these variables themselves. For example:
tmp_file="${TMPDIR:?}/result.json"
$tmpFile = Join-Path $env:TEMP "result.json"
| Platform | $TMPDIR / $TMP / $TEMP |
Literal /tmp |
|---|---|---|
| Linux + bubblewrap | Virtual /tmp (bound to the private dir) |
Shared for the session (not a fresh empty tmpfs each call) |
| macOS Seatbelt | Host path of the private dir (allowed by policy) | Host macOS temporary directory; scripts should use $TMPDIR |
| Windows (no OS sandbox) | Host path of the private dir | Not promised to match (e.g. Git Bash /tmp) |
Independent sandboxes such as MCP servers keep their own isolation and do not
inherit the chat session's temporary directory. An approved sandbox-escape
command still receives the private temp environment variables, but on Linux its
literal /tmp is no longer mapped by bubblewrap.
Windows note: Windows has no OS-level shell sandbox. The restricted-token
backend is retired from enforcement because denying the current user's own SID
locked hosts out of their credential store and the token broke common
toolchains. Permission presets still apply as Reasonix tool-layer
boundaries: Read only refuses file writes and asks before every shell command,
and Workspace write keeps file tools inside workspace_root and allow_write
and asks before writing elsewhere. Shell commands in every preset run as the
current OS user without confinement, so [sandbox] network and shell-level
forbid_read are not enforced there; dedicated file tools still honor
forbid_read. Saved credential variables are removed from child environments,
but local tools run as the user and can deliberately read other user-readable
files. [sandbox] bash = "enforce" resolves to off on Windows and
reasonix doctor reports the ignored value.
When no OS sandbox backend is available, bash = "enforce" refuses bash
execution instead of running unconfined. Install the platform sandbox backend
(bubblewrap/bwrap on Linux, sandbox-exec on macOS) or set
[sandbox] bash = "off" to explicitly restore the pre-1.16 unconfined shell
behavior.
For coding-quality reports, run reasonix doctor quality <branch-id-or-path>
(add --json for structured output). This reads the selected session but emits
only content-free counts and profile categories: model family, runtime profile,
collaboration / approval modes, message and tool-call counts, verification and persisted
compaction-summary counts, plus desktop token/cache telemetry when available.
It omits transcript text, paths, session identifiers, tool arguments and output,
endpoints, and custom model names, so the result is suitable for a public issue
or Discussion. This differs from reasonix doctor session, whose support zip
contains the complete unredacted transcript and must remain in a trusted support
channel.
Capability diagnostics
Use this when a skill, slash command, hook, plugin package, MCP server, or
AGENTS.md is missing, shadowed, disabled, or fails to start. Full flag
reference, JSON schema, and issue codes:
Capability diagnostics.
# Static (default): no network, no MCP child processes
reasonix doctor capabilities
# Machine-readable (stdout is pure JSON)
reasonix doctor capabilities --json
# Another workspace root
reasonix doctor capabilities --root /path/to/project
# Live MCP probe — only when you explicitly allow starting third-party servers
reasonix doctor capabilities --live --timeout 5s
| Surface | How |
|---|---|
| CLI | reasonix doctor capabilities (above) |
| Desktop | Settings → Diagnostics — refresh, copy redacted JSON, optional “include current session runtime” (reads the active tab Host only; does not start MCP) |
| Agent | /reasonix-guide (built-in inline skill) or ask naturally; it prefers static doctor JSON before --live |
Exit code 0 allows warnings/info; 1 means at least one error (or a live
start failure); 2 is bad flags. This is separate from reasonix doctor
(providers/sandbox) and reasonix plugin doctor <name> (one package).
Plugins (MCP)
Reasonix is an MCP client. A [[plugins]] entry's type selects the transport:
stdio (default) launches a local subprocess (command/args/env); http
(Streamable HTTP) connects to a remote url with optional static headers
(${VAR} / ${VAR:-default} expanded from the environment, so tokens stay out
of the file); sse connects to servers that still use the legacy persistent
GET + announced POST endpoint transport.
For a remote HTTP server without a static Authorization header, an
authentication challenge is shown as Sign in. Run
reasonix mcp auth <name> in the CLI, or click Sign in for that server in
the Desktop MCP panel. Reasonix performs OAuth metadata discovery, dynamic
client registration, PKCE S256 authorization, and refresh-token
rotation. Discovery and token requests use the same Reasonix network-proxy
settings as the MCP connection.
OAuth client and token state is kept outside the workspace in the server's
private Reasonix state directory, written with mode 0600, and bound to the
full configured resource URL. An explicit static Authorization header always
takes precedence. Clear authentication removes only Reasonix's local OAuth
state; it does not sign out the third-party browser session. Reasonix opens the
browser only after an explicit sign-in action, never automatically from a
background tool-call failure. Removing the MCP server also removes its local
OAuth state unless a lower-priority declaration for the same resource becomes
effective.
Browse the official MCP Registry from Settings → MCP servers → Browse
registry, or use reasonix mcp browse [query] and
reasonix mcp install <registry-name>. Registry access is explicit and never
runs during startup. Entries that need secrets or required arguments are shown
as manual setup instead of being installed with an incomplete configuration;
query-specific cached results remain available during a registry outage.
The normal setup path is intentionally one step. Use Desktop's Add and
connect, /mcp add, or ask Reasonix to install a package or URL. These
explicit installs are saved to the user-global config.toml and are also
authorization: the server connects in the current session, and no second trust
step appears now or on the next startup. Servers declared by the current
project's reasonix.toml or .mcp.json remain in that project and are trusted
without a separate launch confirmation. Explicit deny rules still win. The
server's calls run
directly, including tools that declare destructiveHint. The dedicated Planner
still refuses destructive tools, and strict read-only sub-agents still expose
only hinted non-destructive readers.
MCP names are resolved once per workspace. Project declarations override
same-name global installs; inside a project, reasonix.toml overrides
.mcp.json. Editing updates the effective declaration in its original file,
and removing a higher-priority declaration reveals the next one instead of
deleting every same-name entry.
stdio servers keep one process for initialize, reads, and writes, so stateful
servers such as browsers retain sessions and open pages. Because an OS sandbox
is fixed when a process starts, this shared process uses the server's normal
process sandbox for every call; readOnlyHint and read-only sub-agent filtering
are dispatch policy, not a second per-call process sandbox.
Tools surface to the model as mcp__<server>__<tool>. A tool declaring MCP's
readOnlyHint: true joins parallel dispatch and the strict read-only tool
surfaces. Installing a server or declaring it in project configuration
authorizes the dedicated Planner to use all of its non-destructive
tools without another per-tool setting; strict read-only research sub-agents
receive only hinted non-destructive readers. Tools without the hint remain
write-capable for scheduling and mutation accounting. While planning, built-in
writers keep the ordinary permission posture. The dedicated Planner permits
authorized non-destructive MCP (including opaque writers) but hard-blocks
destructive or unauthorized targets; a single-model Plan without that dedicated
Planner keeps the older writer/destructive block until Plan exits.
Installing an MCP server is the authorization decision. After installation, all
of its tools run directly without a second server-level, per-tool, writer, or
destructive approval setting. Explicit global deny rules still win. The host
keeps readOnlyHint and destructiveHint internally for parallel scheduling,
Plan restrictions, strict read-only sub-agents, and cached-to-live safety
reclassification; these hints do not add user configuration.
Reasonix deliberately trusts an installed server to describe those hints
honestly. Planner/read-only filtering is therefore a workflow boundary for
trusted servers, not containment against a malicious MCP server; explicit deny
rules and the process sandbox remain host-controlled boundaries.
The retired trusted_read_only_tools, default_tools_approval_mode,
tools.<raw>.approval_mode, and approvals_reviewer fields are ignored when
loading older files and removed the next time Reasonix saves that MCP entry.
A server's prompts surface as /mcp__<server>__<prompt> slash commands
(positional args after the command); its resources are pulled in by writing
@<server>:<uri> in a message; /mcp lists connected servers and what each
exposes. make build also produces bin/reasonix-plugin-example — a runnable
reference stdio server (echo, wordcount, a review prompt, a style-guide
resource) you can copy.
[[plugins]] # local stdio server
name = "example"
command = "reasonix-plugin-example"
# startup_timeout_seconds = 60 # optional initialize + tools/list cap
# call_timeout_seconds = 600 # optional per-server MCP call timeout
# tool_timeout_seconds = { "generate_video" = 1800 } # optional raw MCP tool names
[[plugins]] # remote server over Streamable HTTP
name = "stripe"
type = "http"
url = "https://mcp.stripe.com"
headers = { Authorization = "Bearer ${STRIPE_KEY}" }
Enabled MCP servers start connecting automatically in the background after a
session begins, so chat stays usable while tools come online. Use /mcp or the
desktop MCP panel to refresh status, reconnect a server, inspect failures, or
disable a server for the current session. For a read-only config/runtime health
report across skills, hooks, packages, and MCP (without changing settings), see
Capability diagnostics
(reasonix doctor capabilities or Settings → Diagnostics).
An interactive caller waits only briefly for a cold server. If that wait ends,
the shared startup continues in the background rather than being killed and
restarted; retry the tool after it comes online. mcp_startup_timeout_seconds
(default 30) bounds the full launch, authorization, initialize, and
tools/list sequence. mcp_call_timeout_seconds applies only after the server
is connected. Either value can be overridden per server.
Already have an .mcp.json? Drop it in the project root and Reasonix
reads it as-is — the mcpServers spec (command/args/env, type/url/
headers, ${VAR} expansion) maps field-for-field onto [[plugins]]. Both
sources are merged; on a name collision reasonix.toml wins.
{
"mcpServers": {
"filesystem": { "command": "npx", "args": ["-y", "@modelcontextprotocol/server-filesystem", "/path"] },
"stripe": { "type": "http", "url": "https://mcp.stripe.com", "headers": { "Authorization": "Bearer ${STRIPE_KEY}" } }
}
}
Upgrading from 0.x? Your old ~/.reasonix/config.json is still read for its
mcpServers (honouring mcpDisabled) as a lowest-priority source, so MCP servers
keep working — move them into reasonix.toml's [[plugins]] or a .mcp.json when
convenient.
Slash commands
In an interactive reasonix session, built-in commands (/compact, /context, /new, /clear, /rewind,
/tree, /branch, /switch, /todo, /model, /mcp, /skills, /hooks,
/memory, /goal, /output-style, /sandbox, /language,
/reasoning-language, /help) run
locally — /help lists them all. Built-in skills such as /init,
/explore, /test, and /reasonix-guide also appear in the slash menu and via
run_skill (bodies load on demand; only the index line is cache-stable). Use
/reasonix-guide when you need config or capability troubleshooting; it points
at reasonix doctor capabilities (see
Capability diagnostics). /new starts a new
session while saving the previous transcript for history/resume; /clear
discards the current context without saving it and asks for confirmation. /tree
shows saved conversation branches, /branch [name] forks the current
conversation tip, /branch <turn> [name] forks from an earlier checkpointed
turn, and /switch <id|name> loads another branch. Custom commands are
Markdown files under .reasonix/commands/ (project) or ~/.reasonix/commands/
(user) — review.md becomes /review, a subdirectory namespaces it
(git/commit.md → /git:commit). The body is a prompt template; invoking the
command sends it as a turn.
/compact [focus] runs as a session maintenance operation. Desktop and remote
clients show one recoverable progress card and keep Stop available while the
summary request can still be cancelled. Messages sent during compaction remain
in the existing session inbox and run in order after compaction finishes or
stops. Stopping compaction does not withdraw those queued messages. If a
summary adapter does not stop within the cancellation grace period, or the
result cannot be saved safely, the session enters an explicit recovery state
instead of accepting a late summary or reporting idle.
Compaction and ordinary turns share one foreground admission gate, including
direct CLI, ACP, Bot, inbox, desktop, and remote entry points. In the terminal
UI, Esc stops a cancellable compaction without clearing the current draft.
An empty history or empty selected range completes as “No history to compact”
without calling the summary model. The operation card keeps its error, applied
result, and estimated token change across refreshes and reconnects; a persisted
progress record is marked interrupted only after runtime synchronization proves
that no matching operation is active.
Maintenance owns the shared session runtime as well as the controller, so a controller replacement cannot take over during compaction. Start and terminal operation records are durably checkpointed independently of ordinary turns. If either checkpoint fails, queued work stays behind the recovery barrier. An older idle snapshot cannot interrupt a newer live operation; inferred interruptions can be corrected by fresh runtime evidence. Unknown operation states display an unavailable-record message instead of success. Empty selected ranges are no-ops only below the hard context limit; an oversized context still requires safe recovery.
Subagent profiles
Subagent profiles are manual Skills with runAs: subagent and
invocation: manual. They are stored in the same project/global Skill roots as
the desktop settings page, so profiles created on either surface are immediately
available to the other after the session refreshes. In interactive chat, invoke
one with /<name> <task>; Reasonix runs an isolated child loop and keeps only
the task and final answer in the parent conversation.
The headless CLI provides explicit management and execution commands without
changing the ordinary reasonix run task semantics:
reasonix subagent list
reasonix subagent create reviewer --description "Review changes" --prompt-file reviewer.md --tools read_file,grep,bash
reasonix subagent edit reviewer --effort high --model deepseek-pro
reasonix subagent try reviewer "review the current diff" # always read-only
reasonix subagent run reviewer "review and fix the current diff"
reasonix subagent delete reviewer --yes
create defaults to project scope when a workspace is available and to global
scope otherwise; pass --scope project|global to choose explicitly. edit
changes only explicitly supplied fields, and an empty value such
as --model= or --tools= clears that field. The profile editors deliberately
refuse custom-path or richer hand-authored Skills so they cannot discard
frontmatter, references, or scripts; manage those files through the Skills
workflow instead. Built-in profiles have no editable file, so edit accepts
only --model and --effort for them and stores the same per-name overrides as
the desktop settings page.
See Subagent profiles for the complete CLI reference, Skill file format, model precedence, safety behavior, and troubleshooting.
Context Engine v2 separates two intentionally different layers:
- Standing instructions come from hierarchical
REASONIX.md,AGENTS.md, andCLAUDE.mdfiles. Put rules here when they must be present on every relevant turn. User-global files load first, then workspace and deeper target directories; within one directory,.local.mdvariants win. - Background memory stores one durable fact per Markdown file. Each fact has
an immutable ID, monotonic revision, timestamps, independent
type(user,feedback,project,reference) andscope(project,global), plus freshness metadata. Facts may be stale, so they never outrank the current request or standing instructions.
Reasonix automatically recalls a small set of relevant facts before each real
user turn. It searches the raw user message, suppresses generic requests such as
"continue", prefers project facts over equivalent global fallbacks, down-ranks
stale facts, and appends at most four facts / 2,400 characters to the user turn.
This dynamic suffix does not rewrite the cache-stable system prompt or tool
schemas. Use /memory recall to see the selected IDs, scores, reasons,
freshness, budget, and suppression decision.
New, bounded, non-sensitive project/reference facts can be created
automatically with no setup or approval click. Other memory changes follow the
active permission preset and explicit ask / deny rules. The storage layer
makes the automatic create grant create-only, so it cannot overwrite a fact
that appears concurrently.
A top-level headless controller may use the same one-shot low-risk create path;
sub-agents and headless surfaces without the owning scoped controller fail closed.
forget archives rather than permanently deletes. Every update snapshots the
previous revision; restore and archive recovery always create a higher revision
instead of overwriting history:
/memory instructions
/memory recall
/memory revisions <id-or-name>
/memory restore <id-or-name> <revision>
/memory archived
/memory recover <archive-path>
The desktop Context Center shows the same provenance, conflicts, revision history, recall trace, and recovery actions. Opening its Suggestions tab scans recent local user turns automatically; candidates are deduplicated against both memory scopes and instruction bodies, but nothing is saved until the user accepts it. Remote workspaces never fall back to local desktop memory or sessions.
Legacy facts are upgraded in place with deterministic IDs and revision 1;
missing scope is inferred from the containing directory. Migration is
idempotent, old clients retain safe routing, and legacy Memory v5 transcripts
remain readable. For the complete behavior and privacy/cache contract, see
Context Engine v2.
---
description: Review the staged diff
argument-hint: [focus-area]
---
Review the staged diff. Focus on $ARGUMENTS, list bugs with file:line.
$ARGUMENTS expands to all space-separated args, $1…$N to positional ones.
MCP prompts also appear here as /mcp__<server>__<prompt>.
Embedded documentation retrieval
Reasonix bundles the Markdown files from docs/ and the reviewed
release-notes/releases.json catalog into each CLI and Desktop build. The
read-only docs tool searches that exact offline corpus with local BM25
retrieval and can read a complete matching section with source provenance. It
renders every release in both languages under paths such as
changelog/v1.19.5.md and changelog/v1.19.5.zh-CN.md, so questions about a
specific version, upgrades, fixes, or known risks work offline. The agent should
use the tool before web search or assumptions when a question concerns Reasonix
configuration, CLI/Desktop behavior, release history, permissions, MCP, memory,
recovery, providers, or maintainer workflows.
No setup, network connection, vector database, or embedding service is needed.
Search results prefer the query language while retaining explicit en,
zh-CN, audience, and catalog filters. The docs capability is exposed through
the unified use_capability surface for every task. Every result reports
the product version, immutable source revision, and corpus SHA-256 digest. Release
CI compiles the CLI and rejects publication unless that embedded manifest matches
the candidate's docs/*.md, release-notes/releases.json, and build identity. A
newer online main-v2 page therefore cannot silently replace version-matched
local guidance or release history.
Use /docs to inspect the bundled corpus identity and usage examples without
calling a model. Use /docs <question> (for example,
/docs 1.19.5 changelog) to make Reasonix search the corpus locally first and
then pass the version-matched evidence to the currently configured AI for a
sourced answer. This command path does not depend on the model deciding to call
the docs tool, while ordinary natural-language questions may still use the
tool automatically. Existing custom commands and compatible plugin or skill
aliases keep ownership of /docs; when that happens, CLI and Desktop normally
expose the built-in corpus as /reasonix:docs instead. If that qualified name is
also already owned, Reasonix selects the next free reasonix:-qualified fallback
without displacing it. A remote Desktop uses the host's resolved command catalog,
so the displayed entry always matches what that host will execute.
Pull requests that change user-visible CLI, Desktop, configuration, provider, permission, or tool behavior must declare whether embedded documentation was updated. When no documentation change is needed, the declaration must explain why the existing version-matched guidance remains correct.
Goal
Goal is the unified runtime for long-running objectives. Reasonix keeps working
until the goal is complete, blocked, paused, or cleared. Ordinary chat never
changes collaboration mode implicitly; choose Goal in the composer or use
/goal to start a long-running objective.
Goal has no default model-round, cross-Run turn, wall-clock, or numeric no-progress limit. It continues until completion, a genuine user/external blocker, manual stop/pause, an unrecoverable external error, or an explicit user-selected budget. To place an optional ceiling on an unattended loop, set:
[agent]
goal_token_budget = 20000000
The default is 0 (off). Reaching a positive token budget produces one summary
and a resumable budget_spend pause. /goal resume grants a fresh configured
slice while cumulative Goal statistics remain intact. Explicit positive
max_steps, task time, and task cost budgets remain available as well.
Cumulative rounds, tokens and real provider requests are tracked and shown as
statistics; a token limit appears only when explicitly configured. A paused
goal keeps its objective and runtime history — use /goal resume to continue,
or /goal pause to pause a running goal manually. /goal status shows rounds,
requests and tokens. Exact consecutive tool calls receive reminders at the
third, fifth, and eighth occurrence; the calls still execute. An active, armed
goal continues after an ordinary model final through the runtime idle driver;
there is no per-turn continue report. The model uses update_goal(complete)
when it judges the whole objective finished and update_goal(blocked) for a
concrete persistent blocker. No evaluator, todo percentage or host quality
gate decides completion. Restoring, importing or forking loads the durable
goal disarmed; a directly authorized user turn or explicit UI action must
resume it.
For complex work, write the objective as a task contract: Context, Request, Output format, Constraints, and Pause policy. Goal mode treats those sections as the boundary for autonomous work. It keeps going with sensible defaults unless the next step requires an irreversible or externally visible operation, a scope change, or information only the user can provide.
Legacy simple/write/research classes and Goal sidecars are read only at the
explicit compatibility/import boundary. There is no separate research runtime
to configure. Current Goal state is a versioned goal/state projection in the
linear v3 session, and activation is process-local. Legacy
.reasonix/autoresearch/<task-id>/ archives remain read-only. Deprecated
budget flags are accepted for compatibility but hidden from help and
completion.
Model task progress
todo_write updates progress for the current top-level turn. A newly admitted
Goal round starts with a fresh todo plan; compaction, steer and interactive
answers inside that round keep the current list. The host does not finish todos
when a turn or Goal ends. complete_step is absent from discovery; an old call
returns a normal tool_retired result and never changes task state.
@ references
Embed @ references in a message and Reasonix resolves them before sending, as
tagged context blocks: @path/to/file (or @dir) injects a local file's
contents (or a directory listing), and @<server>:<uri> injects an MCP
resource. A local path is only treated as a reference when it actually exists,
so ordinary @mentions stay literal. Typing / or @ opens an autocomplete
menu — slash commands, or hierarchical file navigation (one directory level at a
time, descend into folders) plus MCP resources.
Two-model collaboration
reasonix setup manages providers, model lists, credentials, connection tests,
and the default model. It stages changes until Save and exit, and synchronizes
provider access with the desktop app. See the CLI reference.
Running two models together (executor + planner, separate cache-stable sessions)
is a one-line edit afterwards — set planner_model to any other enabled provider:
[agent]
planner_model = "deepseek-pro" # used as the low-frequency planner
The planner sees loaded REASONIX.md / AGENTS.md memory and a small read-only
research tool set, so it can inspect relevant files before handing a plan to the
executor. Writer and workflow tools remain executor-only.
Reasonix routes each turn deterministically without another classifier model.
Ordinary requests always stay with the executor. The dedicated planner runs
only for an explicit plan first / 先规划 request, an explicit wait-for-
approval boundary, an explicit plan only / 不要执行 request, or Goal
start. Wording such as "complex refactor" or "fix login" does not start the
planner. There is no automatic planning depth. Explicit Plan Mode
remains a separate host workflow on the executor and is never planned twice.
just do it / 直接改 also stays with the executor. Execution boundaries are
recognized across the request, not only at its beginning, while quoted
examples are ignored. Bare plan-first requests continue from the planner to
the executor automatically. Requests that explicitly say to wait for
confirmation pause at the host approval boundary and continue to the executor
after approval. Only an explicit plan only / 不要执行 request ends the
current turn with the plan persisted and no execution; a later user instruction
can continue in the same session. The phase detail records a privacy-safe route
and reason code for diagnosis without logging the user prompt.
The planner uses one stable system prompt. A small host-authored
<planner-turn> block names the explicit route and preserves the planner
prefix cache after the one-time prompt upgrade. The plan should separate
verified from candidate touchpoints and include non-goals, risks, acceptance
criteria, and command-level verification when evidence supports them. The
planner must call submit_plan; a prose reply without a submitted plan is a
protocol error. If a planner still does not finalize after its bounded
research and finalization round, the turn fails closed on every route and the
executor is not started. The incomplete planner turn is rolled back instead of
leaving an unusable continuation tail.
Ordinary clean finals end the turn. Goal, review, and guardian flows keep
their own continuation constraints. In Goal mode, if an active todo produces
no new completion, unique read, command, or mutation past the stall threshold,
the host forces a smaller step, different tool/approach, focused delegation,
or a real blocker report, then execution continues. Exact repeats do not count
as progress; new host-observed work renews the lease. Two-level task lists keep
the same single-current contract: the active level-1 sub-step is the one
in_progress item while its level-0 phase stays pending; sub-steps are worked
and signed off in order, and once every sub-step has completed the phase itself
becomes in_progress for its own final sign-off.
Existing [agent].max_steps and planner_max_steps keys remain syntactically
accepted during upgrades, but their values are ignored and removed with a
one-time notice. This prevents a stale hidden limit from truncating automatic
progress or inherited subagent work. Use the one-off CLI --max-steps flag when
an explicit run budget is needed; unattended bots retain [bot].max_steps,
where 0 means continuous execution and a positive value is explicit.
An ordinary chat task has no limit of any kind by default — not rounds, not tokens, not time, not money. It runs until the model finishes, an adaptive guard decides it stopped making progress, or you stop it.
An optional spend gate is available when you want one. It bounds a whole task (every "continue" included, until you start unrelated work), and on crossing it the task produces one tool-free summary and pauses; the work is saved and the next message continues it.
[agent]
task_cost_budget = 5.0 # in the model's pricing currency
task_time_budget_minutes = 60 # wall clock across the whole task
Both are off unless set. In particular, task_time_budget_minutes = 0 (and
legacy negative values) disables the time gate; only a positive value enables
it. Neither has a default, because a stop is a judgement
only you can make: no amount of money is portable across models — a budget
loose enough for a cheap model would land a frontier model within a couple of
answers — and a long task is as often the job you asked for as it is a runaway.
Cost applies only to a priced model. Without a price table that axis stays inactive rather than reading the task as free; use the time axis for a free or local model.
Rounds are deliberately not an axis. A turn that reaches a high round count
without spending much is one whose rounds are individually cheap and fast,
which is the case least worth interrupting. Use the one-off --max-steps flag
when you specifically want a run bounded by rounds.
Subagent skills inherit the executor model by default. Set subagent_model to
run them on another configured model, or use subagent_models to override only
specific skills such as review or security_review.
Subagents may delegate one more layer by default: the root session is depth 0,
first-layer subagents are depth 1, and the maximum max_subagent_depth = 2
means a depth-1 workflow can dispatch a depth-2 reviewer or implementer. Depth-2
subagents do not receive recursive agent/skill tools. Set
agent.max_subagent_depth = 1 to restore the old single-layer boundary. This is
intended for workflows such as Superpowers where a workflow skill may dispatch a
reviewer subagent, while still avoiding unbounded recursion and background
fanout.
Use read_only_task when planning needs isolated, deeper research without
granting write-capable delegation. Use read_only_skill when the same need is
best expressed through an existing skill. Both run ephemeral read-only
subagents with only read-only research tools plus safe foreground bash, return
only the final answer, and do not create resumable subagent transcripts.
Read-only nested delegation may be available until max_subagent_depth is
reached, but writer-capable task / run_skill remain unavailable inside these
read-only child registries. Every task shares one tool surface: call
use_capability for read_only_skill and other optional tools. Subsequent
writer calls still pass through Permissions/Sandbox.
Every strict read-only child is built through one shared construction
pairing — RunReadOnlySubAgentWithSession / NewReadOnlyAgent — which marks
the child permanently read-only and applies a final registry filter. The filter
removes writers, destructive MCP targets, readers from unauthorized servers,
and every host-mutating tool. User-installed and project-configured servers are
authorized immediately. Eligible readers may still start on demand. These are
the strict read-only entrances:
| Entrance | Purpose |
|---|---|
read_only_task |
Isolated read-only research child from the main session |
parallel_tasks (read-only) |
Concurrent read-only research children |
fleet with read_only: true |
Parallel profile-aware batch (forced read-only per item) |
read_only_skill |
The same isolation driving an existing skill |
reasonix review (CLI) |
Read-only review of a diff or branch |
| Desktop preview/review subagents | Read-only desktop analysis surfaces |
These children run your configured hooks, each under its own session ID.
The Planner uses <session>:planner, derived from the parent session every time
a hook fires, so it follows /new and /clear. The desktop profile try run
loads the workspace's project hooks and your global hooks, as a chat session in
that workspace would, under try-subagent:<run>. reasonix review is
different: it runs only your own hooks, meaning global
<Reasonix home>/settings.json and installed plugins, under review:<run>. It
never runs .reasonix/settings.json from the checkout under review, and its
hooks use the [tools.shell] from your user config.toml, never the checkout's
reasonix.toml, because reviewing an untrusted branch must not execute commands
or interpreters that branch configures.
reasonix review usually runs inside a checkout you have not vetted, so its
tools, skills and hooks come only from your own configuration. The review
skill resolves from the built-in and your user-level skill directories, never
the checkout's .reasonix/skills (or .agents, .agent, .claude). Search
([tools.search]) and the bash sandbox ([sandbox]) come from your user
config.toml, never the checkout's reasonix.toml. The checkout's config still
picks the provider when it sets default_model; pass --model to choose your
own.
In persisted sessions, parallel_tasks and fleet return a bounded preview
plus one Subagent reference per completed child instead of concatenating every
full answer into a truncation-prone tool result. The parent can call
read_subagent_result with that reference and page by offset_bytes; results
are scoped to the current conversation lineage and workspace. Headless runs
without a persisted parent session remain ephemeral and receive fair bounded
previews, but cannot mint durable references.
Persisted child results include status (completed, partial, failed, or
cancelled) and retryable. Partial or retryable failed runs retain a visible
answer and reference so the parent can inspect them with read_subagent_result
or continue the same task/run_skill transcript with continue_from.
The interactive two-model Planner uses a dedicated construction path
(NewPlannerAgent): it still blocks bash, file writers, and ordinary writers,
but may call authorized, non-destructive MCP through the fixed
use_capability proxy without requiring readOnlyHint. Direct mcp__*
schemas never enter the Planner tool list, so MCP install/connect churn does
not change the Planner cache prefix after the one-time schema upgrade. Missing
readOnlyHint no longer blocks the Planner; tools with destructiveHint are
zero-exec and should be written into the plan for the Executor.
In Balanced two-model sessions the Executor has its own frontend for the same
stable proxy, so an auto_start=false or destructive capability discovered by
the Planner remains callable by capability ID after handoff. Planner and
Executor ledgers/audits stay isolated and only the Host connection is shared.
Ordinary task / fleet sub-agents also get the same fixed proxy (session-
shared Host and connections, per-agent frontend/ledger) and may call installed
or project-configured MCP without readOnlyHint. Those calls use the trusted
MCP permission path (live authorization plus explicit deny only); writer and
destructive calls are still serialized, recorded as mutations, and subject to
closed-loop evidence/lease guards rather than Planner handoff. Strict
read_only_task / read_only_skill / review sub-agents share the stable proxy
schema and connection reuse but keep the strict execution gate
(authorized && readOnlyHint && !destructiveHint). Profile allowed-tools
MCP names convert to capability-id allowlists on the proxy; children never
inherit dynamic mcp__* schemas.
Inside a strict child, use_capability re-checks the resolved target before
commit/permission/hooks/execution. An unconnected eligible MCP reader may start
on demand from the current schema cache. Before tools/call, cached
readOnlyHint/destructiveHint facts are checked against the live
initialize/tools-list result; a reader-to-writer change or destructive promotion
means zero executions and a normal retry through the current boundary. A
schema-only change refreshes the cache for the next session without interrupting
the authorized call. Runtime enablement, authorization, and the complete
connection identity are checked again immediately before dispatch, so a
same-name client from another project/tab cannot be reused accidentally. An
unauthorized server cannot raise privileges there. This strict-child boundary
is narrower than the dedicated Planner: the Planner accepts authorized opaque
non-destructive MCP, while a strict child requires an explicit reader hint and
never exposes writers at all.
Reasonix uses fact-driven execution. Ordinary requests always enter the executor. There is no automatic task mode or selectable quality floor. Planner, Goal, permission, sandbox, and the task contract are independent states.
Ordinary turns end when the model ends normally, even with unfinished todos or failed checks. There are no quality retries or todo-driven continuation rounds. Active Goals alone drive automatic continuation; approved Plans execute as ordinary tasks. Historical checkpoints remain available through an explicit Continue checks request, without restoring quality gates. Protocol recovery, cancellation, and resource limits remain independent.
Every task shares the same provider-visible core tool surface: direct
read/bash/edit/write, background-shell lifecycle tools, ask/compress when
registered, and the stable use_capability proxy for optional tools (search,
MCP, skills, subagents, docs, web_fetch, and so on). Calling use_capability
never expands the top-level provider schema, so the prompt-cache tool prefix
stays stable across every task. The Harness minimal preset is not a task
complexity mode.
The model decides whether to investigate, update todos, verify changes, or request review. User and project instructions stay in task context. File counts, authentication paths, schemas, migrations, and explicit verification language do not create host acceptance obligations. The host retains action permissions, preapproval Plan write restrictions, sandboxing, workspace leases, and structured-file stale-version protection. An ordinary tool failure does not skip later independent calls in the same batch. Results show actual commands, failures, interruptions, and checks made stale by later edits; model completion reports are separate from these facts.
For interactive frontends, Plan Mode is always an explicit user choice. Select
Plan in the desktop collaboration-mode control or cycle to Plan with
Shift+Tab in the CLI. Reasonix first drafts a plan, then waits for approval
before the workflow switches to implementation. Tool calls made while drafting
still use the current Permissions and Sandbox. Legacy agent.auto_plan and
agent.auto_plan_classifier values are ignored and removed from the user config
during upgrade. The visible reasoning language can be changed with
/reasoning-language auto|zh|en in the
session, or reasonix config reasoning-language auto|zh|en in a shell/script.
Pass --local
to the reasoning-language shell command only when you intentionally want a
project-local override.
The why behind separate sessions (keeping each model's prefix cache-stable) is in
SPEC.md §3.5.