Add a Managed Runtime Provider

Add one provider through the repository's runtime-provider contract. Keep generic orchestration independent of provider implementations and provider names.

Confirm Product Scope

Apply the product scope gate in AGENTS.md before implementation or approval. Require an accepted issue or accepted design decision that defines ownership, lifecycle, compatibility, security, and validation. A valid bundle or passing test does not establish a supported surface.

Keep the portable experimental profile independent. Do not change portable selection, lifecycle, or compatibility behavior as part of a native managed-provider change.

Load Current Authority

Before planning, editing, or reviewing:

1. Read src/lib/onboard/runtime-provider/contract.ts and registry.ts.
2. Read activation.ts, current.ts, and native-qualification-authority.ts.
3. Read the candidate provider factory and its provider-owned helpers.
4. Trace SandboxEntry.openshellDriver through onboarding and every lifecycle action in scope.
5. Read the focused contract, activation, provider, architecture, and E2E-support tests.

Use checked-in source and tests as behavior authority. Use these references for interpretation:

• Read Bundle API Contract before changing a provider bundle.
• Read Activation and Qualification before making a provider production-selectable.
• Read Implementation and Review before editing generic orchestration, planning validation, or reviewing a provider PR.

Choose the Delivery State

Name the intended state before coding:

• Candidate bundle: The registry accepts one complete 14-surface object. Optional surfaces may declare supported: false with a reason. The provider is not production-selectable.
• Activated provider: Every required surface and qualification field passes the current activation contract. The provider enters through createCurrentRuntimeProviderBundles(...).
• Activation-contract extension: The provider topology cannot satisfy the current activation contract. Stop implementation until maintainers accept the contract change and its validation.
• Review: Evaluate the claimed state only. Do not turn an incomplete candidate into an activated provider during review.

Do not add a candidate to the established-provider registry to bypass activation. Do not emulate Docker commands or invent container-engine identities to satisfy a contract that does not match the provider topology.

Implement One Provider Identity

Resolve configuration once to one opaque provider ID. Register one RuntimeProviderBundle under that identity. Bind every surface, receipt, resource handle, and persisted sandbox record to it.

Provider-owned modules must own provider-specific commands, endpoint or socket authority, runtime resource identity, network preparation, lifecycle operations, recovery, and cleanup. Generic orchestration must consume bundle surfaces. It must not import a provider implementation or branch on a provider name.

If the current contract lacks a required provider-owned behavior, propose the narrow contract extension and its tests. Do not add an ambient environment switch or a central provider-name branch as a substitute.

Persist the selected provider ID in SandboxEntry.openshellDriver. Start, stop, rebuild, snapshot, restore, recovery, inference changes, and destroy must resolve the same bundle from persisted state. Reject missing, unknown, reused, or drifted authority before mutation.

Validate and Qualify

Follow the focused checks in Implementation and Review. Run the current type, repository, contract, activation, provider, and architecture checks that the diff affects.

Local and CI checks establish contract behavior. They do not replace protected qualification or the complete supported live E2E matrix against the commit under review. Use nemoclaw-maintainer-e2e when the maintainer requests the GitHub Actions run.

Report

Return:

• accepted product scope and intended delivery state;
• provider ID, topology, authority model, and persisted state boundary;
• implemented, unsupported, and extended bundle surfaces;
• remaining provider-name branches in generic orchestration;
• focused validation tied to the commit under review;
• protected qualification and full E2E evidence, or the missing gate; and
• credential, recovery, cleanup, and ownership obligations.