Permission Consolidation & Configuration Issues

Date: 2026-05-20

Status: Technical request for review

1. Stale openclaw/videoctl Deny Rules (~90 lines)

Problem: 90 deny rules for the old /home/gleb/openclaw/videoctl/ path are duplicated across all 15 permission sections. The videoctl binary was relocated to /home/gleb/videoctl/. These rules are purely redundant — the * catch-all deny already covers these paths.

Impact: ~90 lines of config bloat. Not runtime-context critical (only active agent's section is loaded) but adds noise to the config file.

Fix: Remove all patterns containing /home/gleb/openclaw/videoctl from the config. The new allow at /home/gleb/videoctl/bin/videoctl + catch-all deny provides equivalent coverage.

Section Locations (for bulk removal):

• Main permission: lines 127, 193, 345-351, 391, 399, 434-443, 474-483, 648-654, 672, 694-700, 722-728, 1867, 1942
• Agent sections (14 copies, lines ~2011-23217): each has openclaw/videoctl/**: "deny" plus openclaw/videoctl/bin/videoctl denys

2. Permission Startup Cache (Causes Stale Rules)

Problem: ACPX caches the permission ruleset at session creation time. When the config file is updated (e.g., adding new videoctl allows), running sessions don't pick up the changes. Only a session reload applies the new rules.

Impact: Preflight tool shows correct rules, but runtime denies. Confusing for both user and agent.

Fix (options):

• Option A: Add a daemon-side mechanism to detect config file changes and trigger a permission reload (ACPX may not support this)
• Option B: Accept that permission changes require a reload — document as known behavior
• Option C: Patch OpenCode to reload permission config on SIGHUP or periodically

Current config:

• /home/matrix-lite/xdg/persistent-chat/opencode/opencode.json (24K+ lines)
• ACPX merge: Permission.merge(input.agent.permission ?? [], input.permission ?? [])
• Evaluation: findLast() — last matching rule wins

3. Git safe.directory Across Symlinked Repos

Problem: Repos at /home/matrix-lite/workspace/repos/<name>/ are symlinks to /home/gleb/<name>/. Git's safe.directory check blocks bare git -C <workspace-path> commands.

Impact: Simple git commands fail with "dubious ownership" errors. The permission config has -c safe.directory=... variants for each repo, but the bare command form doesn't include it.

Affected repos:

• sfq-factory (symlink → /home/gleb/sfq-factory)
• automeat (symlink → /home/gleb/automeat)
• videoctl (symlink → /home/gleb/openclaw/videoctl) — actually this one redirects via new path

Not affected:

• matrix-lite at /home/matrix-lite/app — direct ownership, no symlink
• openclaw-tools — marked as ignore

Fix (options):

• Option A (cleanest): Set git config --global safe.directory '*' or specific repo paths — eliminates the check for all repos
• Option B (current approach): Always use git -c safe.directory=/home/gleb/<repo> -C <workspace-path> commands
• Option C: Remove the symlinks and clone repos directly under matrix-lite ownership

4. Permission Rule Consolidation (Future)

Problem: The config file has grown to 24K+ lines with 15 nearly-identical permission sections. While only the active agent's section is loaded at runtime, maintaining 15 copies is error-prone.

Observations:

• Main permission section: ~1,800 lines (bash ~1,500, read/edit/external_directory ~300)
• Each agent build.permission: ~200-300 bash rules, all structurally similar
• ACPX merges main + active agent: Permission.merge(agent.permission, input.permission)
• The 14 inactive agent sections sit on disk, never loaded at runtime

Fix (deferred): Design a shared-base config with per-agent overrides. Not urgent since unused sections don't consume runtime context.

Summary of Impact

| Issue | Config lines | Runtime impact | Priority |

|-------|-------------|----------------|----------|

| Stale openclaw/videoctl denys | ~90 lines | Low (not loaded) | Medium (config hygiene) |

| Permission startup cache | N/A | High (confusing failures) | High |

| Git safe.directory | ~128 lines | Medium (simple commands fail) | Medium |

| Permission consolidation | ~22K lines (14 copies) | None (not loaded) | Low |