Two independent, evidence-backed defects in the 2026-09-09/10 CI window
(60 completed runs: 26 success / 17 failure; ci-windows|Test red 8 times,
plugin-mount|Install dsh CLI red 4 times).
1. Windows: six of the eight red ci-windows runs were genuine 5000 ms
vitest timeouts in specs that really start a process —
`tests/agent-pty.spec.ts` (`:71` / `:106`; a PowerShell + ConPTY pair per
terminal) and `tests/install-powershell.spec.ts` (`:105`; a cold
`powershell.exe` start measured 12.1 s). vitest.config.ts sets no
testTimeout, so both suites ran on the 5000 ms default, and
`waitForTranscript`'s own poll budget was *also* 5000 ms — the inner wait
consumed the whole outer budget, which is a structurally guaranteed
timeout, not a flake. Both suites now declare a 30 s budget (describe-level
options, verified working on vitest 4) and the inner poll drops to 15 s so
it stays strictly below the outer bound.
2. Windows: `ci-windows`'s Test step runs `pnpm test:windows`
(`vitest run --maxWorkers=2`, the script added with the baseline commit)
instead of `pnpm test`. Five specs spawn real processes, node-pty's ConPTY
helper and a cold powershell.exe are both console-bound, and an unbounded
fork pool on a 2-core runner is the amplifier behind both the timeouts
above and the two silent worker deaths (`Worker exited unexpectedly` with
0 FAIL and every file reported passing — one of them on a commit whose
sibling run was green). Local `pnpm test` semantics are unchanged; only the
Windows lane is bounded.
The worker-death mode itself is NOT proven fixed here: it does not
reproduce on macOS and the two occurrences have no same-commit rerun. This
is the evidence-backed part; the real Windows result decides whether more
is needed, and retries are deliberately not used to paper over it.
3. plugin-mount: `npm install -g @deepseek-ai/dsh@<ver>` never really pinned
anything — the pin's transitives are floating `^` ranges, so while upstream
publishes a prerelease in stages (rc.2 went out package by package between
14:43 and 14:57 UTC on 09-10) npm resolved a mixed rc.1/rc.2 peer graph:
3062 ERESOLVE lines then `Ineffective mark-compacts near heap limit`
(exit 134), or a hard ETARGET on a sibling that appeared 5.5 minutes (resp.
25 seconds) later. The same mechanism hit the alpha line on 09-09. The lane
now pins an already-complete rc.2 and passes `--legacy-peer-deps` plus
`NODE_OPTIONS=--max-old-space-size=4096` to decouple the install from the
upstream publish window; a mismatch would not be silent because the mount
smoke in the same lane boots the real shell.
The stale comment claiming rc.1 is both `latest` and `next` is corrected —
it documented a reality that had already changed.