Harness spec 3.2.0: reasoning goes back during its turn; no absolute paths

context.md §8: every assistant message of the current turn (after the
last message that started a turn — a step-boundary delivery does not)
carries its reasoning back, as reasoning_content in OpenAI chat and as
thinking blocks in Anthropic; earlier turns carry none, which the common
templates render identically. §11: an agent session's prompt names no
absolute machine path: the environment block names the project and says
paths are relative to its root (loop.json context.env), files outside
the project under home as ~/…; relative paths resolve against the
project root, absolute ones still accepted. agents-missing.md and
init.md no longer name the root. New conformance areas: reasoning, paths.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5.5 <noreply@anthropic.com>

harness/conformance/paths.json

@@ -0,0 +1,89 @@
+{
+  "about": "Where an agent session works, as the model is told it and as its tools read a path (context.md §11, spec 3.2.0). `op: env` — `root` is the project root and `started` the directory the session was started in (both absolute); the answer is the environment block's lines about them, in order, from loop.json context.env — none naming an absolute path. `op: resolve` — `path` as a tool call gives it; the answer is the absolute path it means: relative paths against the project root, whatever `started` is, `.` and `..` by their text (filesystem.md, Paths); an absolute path as it is. LLeMbas: not run — a chat's paths are the server's tree's; CLI: prompt/assemble.ts, tool/tool.ts.",
+  "cases": [
+    {
+      "about": "Started at the root: the project's name and nothing else.",
+      "op": "env",
+      "root": "/home/ada/src/app",
+      "started": "/home/ada/src/app",
+      "expect": [
+        "Project: app (paths are relative to its root)"
+      ]
+    },
+    {
+      "about": "Started below the root: that directory, relative to the root.",
+      "op": "env",
+      "root": "/home/ada/src/app",
+      "started": "/home/ada/src/app/packages/web",
+      "expect": [
+        "Project: app (paths are relative to its root)",
+        "Started in: packages/web (relative to the project root)"
+      ]
+    },
+    {
+      "about": "A trailing slash changes nothing.",
+      "op": "env",
+      "root": "/srv/work/site/",
+      "started": "/srv/work/site",
+      "expect": [
+        "Project: site (paths are relative to its root)"
+      ]
+    },
+    {
+      "about": "A relative path is resolved against the project root.",
+      "op": "resolve",
+      "root": "/home/ada/src/app",
+      "started": "/home/ada/src/app",
+      "path": "src/main.ts",
+      "expect": "/home/ada/src/app/src/main.ts"
+    },
+    {
+      "about": "…also when the session started below the root: one base for every relative path.",
+      "op": "resolve",
+      "root": "/home/ada/src/app",
+      "started": "/home/ada/src/app/packages/web",
+      "path": "src/main.ts",
+      "expect": "/home/ada/src/app/src/main.ts"
+    },
+    {
+      "about": "The directory the session started in is reached by its path from the root.",
+      "op": "resolve",
+      "root": "/home/ada/src/app",
+      "started": "/home/ada/src/app/packages/web",
+      "path": "packages/web/index.ts",
+      "expect": "/home/ada/src/app/packages/web/index.ts"
+    },
+    {
+      "about": "An absolute path is still accepted, as it is.",
+      "op": "resolve",
+      "root": "/home/ada/src/app",
+      "started": "/home/ada/src/app/packages/web",
+      "path": "/etc/hosts",
+      "expect": "/etc/hosts"
+    },
+    {
+      "about": ". is the root.",
+      "op": "resolve",
+      "root": "/home/ada/src/app",
+      "started": "/home/ada/src/app/packages/web",
+      "path": ".",
+      "expect": "/home/ada/src/app"
+    },
+    {
+      "about": ".. is resolved by its text (whether it may be reached is the permission rules' business).",
+      "op": "resolve",
+      "root": "/home/ada/src/app",
+      "started": "/home/ada/src/app",
+      "path": "../lib/x.ts",
+      "expect": "/home/ada/src/lib/x.ts"
+    },
+    {
+      "about": "./ and repeated slashes are resolved by their text.",
+      "op": "resolve",
+      "root": "/home/ada/src/app",
+      "started": "/home/ada/src/app",
+      "path": "./docs//guide.md",
+      "expect": "/home/ada/src/app/docs/guide.md"
+    }
+  ]
+}

harness/conformance/reasoning.json

@@ -0,0 +1,323 @@
+{
+  "about": "What a request sends back of the model's reasoning (context.md §8, spec 3.2.0). `messages` is the history a request is built from, in order: `role` user, assistant or tool; `content`; an assistant message's stored `reasoning` (absent: it came with none); a user message's `turn` — false for a delivery at a step boundary (a job's note, a team message, words added to a running turn), which does not start a turn; absent or true for one that does (the person's, or a machine message starting a turn of its own). The answer is the messages as the OpenAI chat dialect sends them — `role`, `content`, and `reasoning_content` on an assistant message after the last user message that started a turn, when its reasoning is not empty (tool calls and ids are left out of the cases: they are sent as always). The Anthropic dialect sends the same messages' thinking blocks. LLeMbas: services/llm/openai_client.py, services/generation.py; CLI: provider/openai-chat.ts, session/engine.ts.",
+  "cases": [
+    {
+      "about": "One turn, three steps: every reply of the turn carries its reasoning back.",
+      "messages": [
+        {
+          "role": "user",
+          "content": "Fix the failing test."
+        },
+        {
+          "role": "assistant",
+          "content": "",
+          "reasoning": "The test name points at the parser."
+        },
+        {
+          "role": "tool",
+          "content": "[#0001 src/parse.ts lines 1-40 of 40 sha 1c9e04ab]\n…"
+        },
+        {
+          "role": "assistant",
+          "content": "",
+          "reasoning": "Line 12 drops the last token."
+        },
+        {
+          "role": "tool",
+          "content": "[#0002 src/parse.ts sha 7d0a91c3]\n@@ -12 +12 @@"
+        }
+      ],
+      "expect": [
+        {
+          "role": "user",
+          "content": "Fix the failing test."
+        },
+        {
+          "role": "assistant",
+          "content": "",
+          "reasoning_content": "The test name points at the parser."
+        },
+        {
+          "role": "tool",
+          "content": "[#0001 src/parse.ts lines 1-40 of 40 sha 1c9e04ab]\n…"
+        },
+        {
+          "role": "assistant",
+          "content": "",
+          "reasoning_content": "Line 12 drops the last token."
+        },
+        {
+          "role": "tool",
+          "content": "[#0002 src/parse.ts sha 7d0a91c3]\n@@ -12 +12 @@"
+        }
+      ]
+    },
+    {
+      "about": "A second turn: the first turn's replies go without their reasoning, the current one's with it.",
+      "messages": [
+        {
+          "role": "user",
+          "content": "Where is the config loaded?"
+        },
+        {
+          "role": "assistant",
+          "content": "",
+          "reasoning": "Search for load."
+        },
+        {
+          "role": "tool",
+          "content": "[#0001] src/config/load.ts:40"
+        },
+        {
+          "role": "assistant",
+          "content": "In src/config/load.ts.",
+          "reasoning": "Found it at line 40."
+        },
+        {
+          "role": "user",
+          "content": "And who calls it?"
+        },
+        {
+          "role": "assistant",
+          "content": "",
+          "reasoning": "Grep for loadConfig."
+        },
+        {
+          "role": "tool",
+          "content": "[#0002] src/app.ts:120"
+        }
+      ],
+      "expect": [
+        {
+          "role": "user",
+          "content": "Where is the config loaded?"
+        },
+        {
+          "role": "assistant",
+          "content": ""
+        },
+        {
+          "role": "tool",
+          "content": "[#0001] src/config/load.ts:40"
+        },
+        {
+          "role": "assistant",
+          "content": "In src/config/load.ts."
+        },
+        {
+          "role": "user",
+          "content": "And who calls it?"
+        },
+        {
+          "role": "assistant",
+          "content": "",
+          "reasoning_content": "Grep for loadConfig."
+        },
+        {
+          "role": "tool",
+          "content": "[#0002] src/app.ts:120"
+        }
+      ]
+    },
+    {
+      "about": "A job's note delivered at a step boundary does not start a turn: the turn's earlier replies keep their reasoning.",
+      "messages": [
+        {
+          "role": "user",
+          "content": "Run the tests in the background and fix the lint."
+        },
+        {
+          "role": "assistant",
+          "content": "",
+          "reasoning": "Start the tests, then lint."
+        },
+        {
+          "role": "tool",
+          "content": "[#0001] job1 started"
+        },
+        {
+          "role": "user",
+          "content": "[A background job you started has finished:]\njob1 (npm test) exited with 0 after 5s.",
+          "turn": false
+        },
+        {
+          "role": "assistant",
+          "content": "",
+          "reasoning": "Tests pass; now the lint."
+        },
+        {
+          "role": "tool",
+          "content": "[#0002] 0 problems"
+        }
+      ],
+      "expect": [
+        {
+          "role": "user",
+          "content": "Run the tests in the background and fix the lint."
+        },
+        {
+          "role": "assistant",
+          "content": "",
+          "reasoning_content": "Start the tests, then lint."
+        },
+        {
+          "role": "tool",
+          "content": "[#0001] job1 started"
+        },
+        {
+          "role": "user",
+          "content": "[A background job you started has finished:]\njob1 (npm test) exited with 0 after 5s."
+        },
+        {
+          "role": "assistant",
+          "content": "",
+          "reasoning_content": "Tests pass; now the lint."
+        },
+        {
+          "role": "tool",
+          "content": "[#0002] 0 problems"
+        }
+      ]
+    },
+    {
+      "about": "A machine message that starts a turn of its own (a team report to an idle lead) does: the replies before it go without.",
+      "messages": [
+        {
+          "role": "user",
+          "content": "Split the work."
+        },
+        {
+          "role": "assistant",
+          "content": "Started alice.",
+          "reasoning": "Add one member."
+        },
+        {
+          "role": "user",
+          "content": "[Team report from alice to lead:]\nDone.",
+          "turn": true
+        },
+        {
+          "role": "assistant",
+          "content": "",
+          "reasoning": "Review alice's change."
+        },
+        {
+          "role": "tool",
+          "content": "[#0001 src/a.ts lines 1-10 of 10 sha 52b6e3a0]\n…"
+        }
+      ],
+      "expect": [
+        {
+          "role": "user",
+          "content": "Split the work."
+        },
+        {
+          "role": "assistant",
+          "content": "Started alice."
+        },
+        {
+          "role": "user",
+          "content": "[Team report from alice to lead:]\nDone."
+        },
+        {
+          "role": "assistant",
+          "content": "",
+          "reasoning_content": "Review alice's change."
+        },
+        {
+          "role": "tool",
+          "content": "[#0001 src/a.ts lines 1-10 of 10 sha 52b6e3a0]\n…"
+        }
+      ]
+    },
+    {
+      "about": "A reply that came with no reasoning, or an empty one, carries no field.",
+      "messages": [
+        {
+          "role": "user",
+          "content": "Hello"
+        },
+        {
+          "role": "assistant",
+          "content": "",
+          "reasoning": "Greet."
+        },
+        {
+          "role": "tool",
+          "content": "[#0001] ok"
+        },
+        {
+          "role": "assistant",
+          "content": "Hi."
+        },
+        {
+          "role": "user",
+          "content": "Again"
+        },
+        {
+          "role": "assistant",
+          "content": "Hi again.",
+          "reasoning": ""
+        }
+      ],
+      "expect": [
+        {
+          "role": "user",
+          "content": "Hello"
+        },
+        {
+          "role": "assistant",
+          "content": ""
+        },
+        {
+          "role": "tool",
+          "content": "[#0001] ok"
+        },
+        {
+          "role": "assistant",
+          "content": "Hi."
+        },
+        {
+          "role": "user",
+          "content": "Again"
+        },
+        {
+          "role": "assistant",
+          "content": "Hi again."
+        }
+      ]
+    },
+    {
+      "about": "The last message the person wrote starts the turn even when nothing has answered it yet: every earlier reply goes without.",
+      "messages": [
+        {
+          "role": "user",
+          "content": "One"
+        },
+        {
+          "role": "assistant",
+          "content": "Done.",
+          "reasoning": "Easy."
+        },
+        {
+          "role": "user",
+          "content": "Two"
+        }
+      ],
+      "expect": [
+        {
+          "role": "user",
+          "content": "One"
+        },
+        {
+          "role": "assistant",
+          "content": "Done."
+        },
+        {
+          "role": "user",
+          "content": "Two"
+        }
+      ]
+    }
+  ]
+}

harness/context.md

@@ -1,6 +1,6 @@
 # Context hygiene
 
-Spec 3.1.0. What a session does to keep tool results from filling the model's context, and (§10, from
+Spec 3.2.0. What a session does to keep tool results from filling the model's context, and (§10, from
 3.1.0) what it keeps still so the model's server can reuse what it has already read — the same in
 a chat and in an agent session, in both projects. The texts and numbers are `loop.json` `context`;
 the cases are `conformance/context.json`; what the model is told is `prompts/blocks/context.md`.
@@ -12,7 +12,8 @@ rewritten.** Changing earlier context invalidates the prompt cache from that poi
 server processes everything after it again, and a cloud API charges full input price for it again —
 on a long context that costs more than the measure saves. So no earlier result is ever shortened,
 replaced by a stub or removed afterwards. The one deliberate break is compaction, which already
-replaces the history with a summary.
+replaces the history with a summary. (From 3.2.0 a turn's reasoning is sent back during the turn and
+not after it, §8: the common chat templates render the history the same either way.)
 
 ## 1. Every result has an id
 
@@ -215,16 +216,67 @@ model): a date that changed at midnight sent a 16,912-token session from 99 % ca
 What a server does with a matching prefix is its own business; a harness that keeps these rules has
 done what it can.
 
-## 8. Earlier reasoning
+## 8. Reasoning goes back to the model during its turn
 
-Left to the model's own chat template: the harness sends the history as it does, and neither strips
+From 3.2.0 (it was left to the chat template before). A model that thinks before each tool call
-reasoning a template keeps nor adds what it drops.
+works on from what it thought: sent its own reasoning back, it carries on; sent its calls without it,
+it reasons its way to them again, step after step. Measured on a local model: a step re-read about a
+fifth fewer tokens with its reasoning sent back.
+
+- **The current turn** is every message after the last one that started a turn: a message the
+  person wrote, or a machine message that starts a turn of its own (a job's or a team's note to an
+  idle session, `loop.json` `jobs`). What is delivered at a step boundary while a turn runs — a
+  job's note, a team message, words the person adds — does not start a turn, and a tool result
+  never does.
+- **Every assistant message of the current turn carries the reasoning it came with**, as the
+  model gave it, in full: in the OpenAI chat dialect as `reasoning_content` on the assistant message
+  (beside its `content` and `tool_calls`), and in the Anthropic dialect as its thinking blocks with
+  their signatures, unchanged and first (which that API already requires for tool use). Reasoning
+  read from inline tags (`<think>`; `quirks.json` `reasoning-fields`) goes back the same way, as
+  `reasoning_content`, and never as text in `content`. A message that came with no reasoning
+  carries none — no empty field.
+- **Assistant messages of earlier turns carry none.** The common templates (Qwen3.x, Nemotron's
+  `truncate_history_thinking`, gpt-oss) drop it there themselves, so what the server reads of the
+  history is the same bytes either way and nothing is re-read; with a template that would keep it,
+  the turn boundary re-reads at most the previous turn. A compaction's summary starts the history
+  afresh: nothing before it carries reasoning.
+- **What is stored is unchanged**: a session keeps each message's reasoning as before; this rule
+  is only about what a request carries (`conformance/reasoning.json`).
+- A subagent, a team member and the main agent each have their own turns: a member's turn starts
+  with its brief or with a message that woke it.
+
+## 11. No absolute paths in the prompt
+
+From 3.2.0. An absolute path costs tokens on every request, says where a machine keeps its files,
+and is copied by the model into calls where a relative one would do. So in an agent session (a
+device's disk):
+
+- **The system prompt, every note and the harness's own task messages (`tasks/init.md`) name no
+  absolute path of the machine.** The environment
+  block names the project by its root's last path component and says paths are relative to its
+  root (`loop.json` `context.env`): `Project: app (paths are relative to its root)`. Where the
+  session was started in a directory below the root, one more line names that directory relative
+  to the root: `Started in: packages/web (relative to the project root)`. There is no
+  `Working directory:` or `Project root:` line with an absolute path any more.
+- **A file in the project is named relative to its root** (an instruction file, `docs/AGENTS.md`); a
+  file under the person's home directory outside the project as `~/…` (the global instructions,
+  `~/.config/lembas/AGENTS.md`). Only a file outside both is named by its absolute path.
+- **Relative paths are resolved against the project root** — by every file tool (`read`, `write`,
+  `edit`, `multiedit`, `apply_patch`, `glob`, `grep`, `list`, `view_image`, `show`) and as the
+  directory `bash` starts in (its `cwd` argument, relative, likewise). Where the person started
+  below the root is a fact told to the model, not a second base; it still ends the instruction
+  chain (`filesystem.md`). **Absolute paths are still accepted** everywhere, as before, and answers
+  still name paths as `filesystem.md` says.
+- A chat on the server is not a machine's disk: its paths are the server's tree's, short and the
+  same for every instance (`/home/<name>`, `blocks/workspace.md`). Its prompt names nothing longer.
+
+`conformance/paths.json`: the environment lines, and how a path is resolved.
 
 ## 9. What the model is told
 
 `prompts/blocks/context.md`, in every session that has `recall`.
 
-## Not in 3.1.0
+## Not in 3.2.0
 
 Eliding old content in batches behind a threshold, and measuring quality and tokens with and without
 these measures, are left for a later spec. Every measure above ships with its unit and conformance

harness/filesystem.md

@@ -18,7 +18,8 @@ one access level for the whole working directory, decided by the CLI's permissio
 
 - **Absolute** paths begin with `/`, the root of the tree: the organisation's root on the server,
   the file system's root on a device.
-- **Relative** paths resolve against the session's **start directory** (its working directory).
+- **Relative** paths resolve against the session's **start directory** (its working directory) —
+  on a device, from spec 3.2.0, against the project root (*Node kinds*, below).
 - `.` and `..` are resolved by their text, before anything is looked up; `..` above `/` stays at
   `/`. Repeated `/` count as one, and a trailing `/` changes nothing. On the server there are no
   links: a path is what it says. On a device, a link is followed, and where the CLI's rules look at
@@ -42,7 +43,11 @@ one access level for the whole working directory, decided by the CLI's permissio
 
 A session has a **boundary** (what it may see at all: the root, a directory, one repository) and a
 **start directory** inside it. On a device the boundary is the project root (the directory the
-CLI's trust is given to) and the start directory is where the session started.
+CLI's trust is given to) and the start directory is where the session started. From spec 3.2.0 a
+device resolves relative paths against the **project root**, not the start directory (`context.md`
+§11): the model is told the project and, when it started below the root, that directory relative to
+the root — one base for every relative path, whatever the directory. The start directory still
+ends the instruction chain (below).
 
 ## Access levels
 

harness/loop.json

@@ -105,7 +105,12 @@
       "line": "Read a file again for its content; recall shows a result by its id.",
       "rows": 50
     },
-    "reasoning": "Earlier turns' reasoning is left to the model's chat template: the harness sends the history as it does, neither stripping reasoning the template keeps nor adding what it drops.",
+    "reasoning": "Spec 3.2.0 (context.md §8): every assistant message of the current turn — the messages after the last one that started a turn (the person's, or a machine message that starts a turn of its own; a delivery at a step boundary does not) — carries the reasoning it came with (OpenAI chat: `reasoning_content`; Anthropic: its thinking blocks, unchanged); assistant messages of earlier turns carry none. What is stored keeps it. conformance/reasoning.json.",
+    "env": {
+      "about": "Spec 3.2.0 (context.md §11): the environment block's lines about where the session works, in an agent session. `project` always, `name` being the project root's last path component; `started` only when the session started in a directory below the root, `path` being that directory relative to the root. No absolute path. conformance/paths.json.",
+      "project": "Project: {{name}} (paths are relative to its root)",
+      "started": "Started in: {{path}} (relative to the project root)"
+    },
     "note": {
       "about": "A note on the next user message (context.md §10, rule 3): what changed since the system prompt was made, after the person's words. Lines in this order, each only when it applies. `plan_ended` is the mode block for a session that leaves plan mode for a mode with no text of its own (a chat). `plan_own` is the plan block for a session that does not resend earlier tool results (a chat): the model's own plan, as its tools left it. `personal` is the {{path}} of the instructions block for the person's own instructions.",
       "open": "<session-note>",

harness/prompts/blocks/agents-missing.md

@@ -2,7 +2,7 @@
      kept by the agent, and how git is used there is the user's answer, asked once and written down. -->
 ## AGENTS.md
 This project has no AGENTS.md yet. It is the file every later session here starts from, so making it is part of the work:
-- Make it at the first natural pause in real work, once you know what the project is — not before you have done anything, and not in plan mode. It goes at the project root: {{root}}/AGENTS.md.
+- Make it at the first natural pause in real work, once you know what the project is — not before you have done anything, and not in plan mode. It goes at the project root: `AGENTS.md`.
 - Before you write it, ask the user how git is to be used here, with ask_user, in one call: {{git_question}} Mark the options you would recommend.
 - Write their answer under a "## Git" heading. Above it, say briefly what the project is, how to build, run and test it, and the conventions that matter.
 - If the user does not want the file, do not bring it up again this session.

harness/prompts/tasks/init.md

@@ -1,6 +1,6 @@
 <!-- Source: OpenCode command/template/initialize.txt (MIT, © 2025 opencode), shortened, and made to
      ask about git the way blocks/agents-missing.md does (LLeMbas CLI's /init). -->
-Create or update `AGENTS.md` at the project root, {{root}}/AGENTS.md: the file every later session here starts from. Every line should answer "would an agent likely get this wrong without being told?" — if not, leave it out.
+Create or update `AGENTS.md` at the project root: the file every later session here starts from. Every line should answer "would an agent likely get this wrong without being told?" — if not, leave it out.
 
 {{focus}}