Best possible solution:

Land the owner-boundary refactor through normal maintainer review if maintainers accept the cleanup, keeping the deprecated SDK compatibility export intact.

Do we have a high-confidence way to reproduce the issue?

Not applicable: this PR is a no-user-visible-behavior refactor rather than a bug report. The review compared current main, the PR diff, callers, adjacent tests, live PR status, and GitHub path history.

Is this the best way to solve the issue?

Yes: moving the copied ANSI grammar into terminal-core and runtime scaffolding removal out of channel presentation sanitization is the narrow owner-boundary fix, while preserving the deprecated SDK re-export avoids a compatibility break.

AGENTS.md: found and applied where relevant.

Codex review notes: model internal, reasoning high; reviewed against 24dba4b44a5b.

Label changes:

• add rating: 🦞 diamond lobster: Overall readiness is 🦞 diamond lobster; proof is 🌊 off-meta tidepool and patch quality is 🦞 diamond lobster.
• remove rating: 🐚 platinum hermit: Current PR rating is rating: 🦞 diamond lobster, so this older rating label is no longer current.

Label justifications:

• P3: This is a low-risk internal cleanup/refactor with no user-visible behavior change and no blocking review finding.
• rating: 🦞 diamond lobster: Overall readiness is 🦞 diamond lobster; proof is 🌊 off-meta tidepool and patch quality is 🦞 diamond lobster.
• status: 👀 ready for maintainer look: ClawSweeper has no concrete contributor-facing blocker left for this PR. Not applicable: The external-contributor proof gate does not apply because this is a member-authored, maintainer-labeled internal refactor; focused tests and exact-head CI remain useful supporting evidence.

PR surface:

Source -13, Tests +12. Total -1 across 9 files.

What I checked:

• Repository policy and scoped guides applied: The root policy and scoped agents/outbound guides were read; the review applied the protected maintainer/member PR handling and the repository preference for moving cleanup ownership to the right boundary. (AGENTS.md:24, 24dba4b44a5b)
• Current main has the duplicated cleanup ownership the PR targets: Current main keeps a narrow terminal-core stripAnsi helper, a copied agent ANSI stripping helper, and outbound runtime-scaffolding removal inside sanitize-text, matching the PR's stated consolidation target. (src/agents/utils/ansi.ts:46, 24dba4b44a5b)
• PR preserves the broader agent ANSI grammar in terminal-core: At PR head, terminal-core adds stripAnsiSequences with the same compatibility grammar shape and non-string TypeError behavior as the deleted agent helper, while leaving the existing narrower stripAnsi contract in place. (packages/terminal-core/src/ansi.ts:53, 80e2d79dce41)
• PR keeps protocol stripping separate and compatibility exported: At PR head, stripInternalRuntimeScaffolding lives in protocol-scaffolding and sanitize-text re-exports it for the deprecated plugin-sdk/infra-runtime compatibility barrel. (src/infra/outbound/sanitize-text.ts:5, 80e2d79dce41)
• Callers stay on the same cleanup order: The agent shell and render call sites still decode or collect text, strip ANSI/control sequences, sanitize binary output, and normalize carriage returns; outbound delivery still strips runtime scaffolding before channel normalization. (src/agents/sessions/bash-executor.ts:101, 80e2d79dce41)
• Adjacent tests cover the moved behavior: Existing outbound tests cover runtime tags, internal delimiters, prompt-data wrappers, stray markers, and tool-call stripping; the PR diff adds terminal-core coverage for the moved agent ANSI grammar. (src/infra/outbound/sanitize-text.test.ts:120, 80e2d79dce41)

Likely related people:

• steipete: GitHub path history shows repeated current-main work on outbound runtime-scaffolding stripping, generic outbound delivery, plugin SDK infra-runtime compatibility, and the agent runtime internalization that introduced the copied ANSI helper. (role: feature-history owner; confidence: high; commits: c2d31a5e59c1, 856592cf001b, bb46b79d3c14; files: src/infra/outbound/sanitize-text.ts, src/infra/outbound/deliver.ts, src/agents/utils/ansi.ts)
• yyzquwu: GitHub path history shows recent ANSI scanner work in terminal-core, which is the new home for the moved compatibility grammar. (role: recent terminal-core contributor; confidence: medium; commits: 205ab8d4bd7a; files: packages/terminal-core/src/ansi.ts)
• vincentkoc: GitHub path history shows recent refactors of session tool output rendering, one of the agent call sites updated to consume the terminal-core ANSI helper. (role: recent agent session contributor; confidence: medium; commits: 32494c7aced4, 336494c86373; files: src/agents/sessions/tools/render-utils.ts)
• RomneyDa: Beyond authoring this PR, GitHub path history shows current-main adjacent outbound delivery refactoring on the same delivery module touched by the cleanup. (role: recent area contributor; confidence: medium; commits: 5fa20826553c, 80e2d79dce41; files: src/infra/outbound/deliver.ts, packages/terminal-core/src/ansi.ts, src/agents/sessions/bash-executor.ts)

• 🦀 challenger crab: rare, exceptional readiness with strong proof, clean implementation, and convincing validation.
• 🦞 diamond lobster: very strong readiness with only minor maintainer review expected.
• 🐚 platinum hermit: good normal PR, likely mergeable with ordinary maintainer review.
• 🦐 gold shrimp: useful signal, but proof or patch confidence is still limited.
• 🦪 silver shellfish: thin signal; proof, validation, or implementation needs work.
• 🧂 unranked krab: not merge-ready because proof is missing/unusable or there are serious correctness or safety concerns.
• 🌊 off-meta tidepool: rating does not apply to this item.

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