feat(claude-code): add transcript_retention_days and Stop-hook idle sentinel by morganl-ant · Pull Request #866 · coder/registry

morganl-ant · 2026-04-22T20:27:55Z

Problem

Two install-time lifecycle gaps in the v5 module:

Session JSONL transcripts under ~/.claude/projects/ are never pruned by the module, so long-lived workspaces accumulate unbounded transcript files unless the user knows to set cleanupPeriodDays themselves.
There is no machine-readable signal that Claude has gone idle, which makes it hard for templates to drive Coder's workspace autostop or activity tracking off agent state.

Changes

New transcript_retention_days input (number, default null, validated >= 1). When set, the module writes cleanupPeriodDays to a managed-settings drop-in so Claude Code prunes old transcripts automatically. When unset, Claude Code's built-in 30-day default applies.
The same drop-in registers a Stop hook that touches ~/.coder-modules/coder/claude-code/last-stop whenever Claude finishes a turn. Templates can read that file's mtime to drive autostop or activity bumping.
Both are written to /etc/claude-code/managed-settings.d/30-coder-lifecycle.json. This is the local managed-settings file mechanism, read by the Claude CLI regardless of inference backend (Anthropic API, Bedrock, Vertex, AI Gateway). If /etc/claude-code is not writable and sudo is unavailable, install logs a warning and continues.
Tests: lifecycle-settings-written (retention set) and lifecycle-settings-default-retention (Stop hook present, no cleanupPeriodDays).
README: new "Session lifecycle" section; version bumped to 5.1.0.

Relationship to #861

The original revision of this PR also replaced the hardcoded TASK_SESSION_ID in start.sh with a workspace-derived UUIDv5 (#726). #861 removed start.sh and module-managed sessions entirely, which resolves #726 directly: there is no longer a hardcoded session ID because the module no longer starts Claude. This PR is now reduced to the install-time pieces above.

Validation

terraform fmt clean
terraform validate clean
terraform test 14/14 pass
bun test 14/14 pass locally (one pre-existing docker-cleanup race in claude-mcp-config is flaky in full-suite runs but passes in isolation; unrelated to this change)

Disclosure: I work on Claude Code at Anthropic. This is one of a small set of contributions we are proposing to the claude-code module; happy to discuss the overall direction in whichever venue the maintainers prefer.

matifali

@morganl-ant thanks for your contribution. I think we can merge this to main and release a new patch version to unblock your users. Bit for other PRs, let's rebase them once #861 (likely today) lands.

matifali · 2026-04-23T12:45:30Z

Also, you would need to bump the patch version in README.md examples and fix the failing tests.

morganl-ant · 2026-04-23T23:59:44Z

Thanks, both addressed in 11925ea:

README examples bumped 4.9.2 -> 4.9.3.
Test failures were two separate bugs: (1) the deriveTaskSessionId helper tried to grep the workspace ID out of script.sh, but the install/start scripts are base64-encoded inside the agentapi wrapper so the regex never matched and the helper silently returned the legacy constant. Fixed by pinning CODER_WORKSPACE_ID in the test env so the derived session ID is deterministic. (2) configure_lifecycle_settings was called after report_tasks in install.sh; report_tasks shells out to the coder CLI which is not in the test container, and set -e aborted before the lifecycle file was written. Swapped the order.

Full suite is 23/23 locally now.

…entinel Re-authored on top of coder#861. The original PR also fixed the hardcoded TASK_SESSION_ID in start.sh (coder#726); coder#861 removed start.sh entirely so that fix is no longer needed and coder#726 is resolved by coder#861 itself. What remains is install-time: - transcript_retention_days input maps to Claude Code's cleanupPeriodDays setting via a managed-settings.d drop-in so long-lived workspaces do not accumulate unbounded session JSONL. - A Stop hook touches ~/.coder-modules/coder/claude-code/last-stop on every turn end so templates can drive workspace autostop or activity tracking off that file's mtime. Both are written to /etc/claude-code/managed-settings.d/30-coder-lifecycle.json, which the Claude CLI reads regardless of inference backend.

morganl-ant · 2026-04-27T23:30:35Z

Rebased onto post-#861 main. The session-ID derivation half of the original PR fell away with #861's removal of start.sh (which also resolves #726 directly). What remains is the install-time transcript_retention_days -> cleanupPeriodDays mapping and the Stop-hook idle sentinel. Title and description updated to match.

matifali

Claude Code is very fast-paced. And we see new features and settings being added every other week. Do you think we should have a more flexible generic way to configure it than adding new named module inputs for each new feature?

For example, https://code.claude.com/docs/en/settings shows many options that can be useful for Enterprises, but adding all of them as named modules does not seem scalable and maintainable to me.

Curious about what you think about this?

Otherwise, I am happy to accept this. One reason for the larger refactor we did in v5.0.0 was to increase the flexibility of configuration so we do not limit users on how they want to use Claude code in a coder workspace.

Thanks

matifali · 2026-04-28T05:17:03Z

+  local target="$${dropin_dir}/30-coder-lifecycle.json"
+  # Bake the absolute path at install time so the hook does not depend on
+  # $HOME being set identically when Claude Code executes it.
+  local sentinel="$HOME/.coder-modules/coder/claude-code/last-stop"


This should depend on module_dir_name input. Although we have a very strict regex there, but hardcoding this would be less flexible for any future changes.

matifali · 2026-04-28T05:20:13Z

+
+The module writes a small managed-settings drop-in to `/etc/claude-code/managed-settings.d/30-coder-lifecycle.json` that:
+
+- registers a `Stop` hook which touches `~/.coder-modules/coder/claude-code/last-stop` whenever Claude finishes a turn. Templates can read that file's modification time to drive workspace autostop or activity tracking.


Can we elaborate a bit more on how templates can use this for activity tracking?

matifali · 2026-04-28T05:22:40Z

+}
+```
+
+The drop-in is a local file read by the Claude CLI at startup; it works with any inference backend (Anthropic API, Bedrock, Vertex, AI Gateway). If `/etc/claude-code` is not writable in the workspace image and `sudo` is unavailable, the install script logs a warning and skips the write.


Should we, in this case, write to the user's $HOME, e.g., $HOME/.claude/settings.json?

DevelopmentCats · 2026-04-29T14:58:33Z

@matifali

I agree with you here. I think we can close this because this amounts to configuration that can now be done through managed_settings introduced in #863

matifali · 2026-04-29T17:35:05Z

@DevelopmentCats I would wait for what @morganl-ant thinks. So maybe keep it open for now.

morganl-ant marked this pull request as ready for review April 22, 2026 20:57

matifali added the version:patch Add to PRs requiring a patch version upgrade label Apr 23, 2026

matifali approved these changes Apr 23, 2026

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matifali requested a review from 35C4n0r April 23, 2026 12:44

morganl-ant force-pushed the anthropic/session-lifecycle branch from 11925ea to 108d41f Compare April 27, 2026 23:29

morganl-ant changed the title ~~fix(claude-code): derive task session ID from workspace; add transcript_retention_days; emit Stop-hook idle sentinel~~ feat(claude-code): add transcript_retention_days and Stop-hook idle sentinel Apr 27, 2026

matifali reviewed Apr 28, 2026

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matifali mentioned this pull request Apr 28, 2026

feat(claude-code): add managed_settings input for policy delivery via /etc/claude-code #863

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feat(claude-code): add transcript_retention_days and Stop-hook idle sentinel#866

feat(claude-code): add transcript_retention_days and Stop-hook idle sentinel#866
morganl-ant wants to merge 1 commit intocoder:mainfrom
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		The module writes a small managed-settings drop-in to `/etc/claude-code/managed-settings.d/30-coder-lifecycle.json` that:

		- registers a `Stop` hook which touches `~/.coder-modules/coder/claude-code/last-stop` whenever Claude finishes a turn. Templates can read that file's modification time to drive workspace autostop or activity tracking.

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morganl-ant commented Apr 22, 2026 •

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