Put the transport above the drivers instead of inside one

ClaudeDriver::spawn called ssh::command itself, so a translator whose job
is a wire format also knew how sessions reach other machines, and every
future driver would have had to remember the same. It now emits a `Launch`
-- program, arguments, working directory -- and hands it to a `Transport`
the manager chose from the session's host.

This is the inversion Bryan asked for, and it pays for itself immediately
in a place I had reported as a UI bug: "Run on" is offered for every
provider but only the Claude driver honoured it, so choosing a host for an
echo session silently ran it locally. With the transport above the driver
that cannot be written -- EchoDriver builds no Launch, so there is nothing
to wrap and nothing to misreport. The picker still needs to stop offering
it, but the code no longer lies underneath.

crate::ssh keeps the quoting, the forced options and the remote script,
with its tests; transport.rs only decides which of the two it is. The two
failure messages move with it, since they are transport-specific -- a
missing ssh client here is a different thing to check than a program
missing from a remote PATH.

Noted in transport.rs rather than built, because nothing needs it yet: a
remote llama-server is spawned as a process but spoken to over HTTP, so a
transport eventually needs "reach this port" as well as "run this".

Verified: cargo test (35), clippy, fmt. Nothing outside transport.rs
mentions ssh now.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
Claude-Session: https://claude.ai/code/session_017xn8nHw1tw1R6PtiY1eEtw

server/src/session/claude.rs

@@ -1,8 +1,11 @@
 //! The Claude Code driver: `claude -p` speaking stream-json on stdio,
 //! translated into the common event model.
 //!
-//! This half owns the process -- spawning it (locally or through `ssh`),
+//! This half owns the process -- asking a transport to start it, resuming
-//! resuming it after a crash, writing lines to it, and shutting it down.
+//! it after a crash, writing lines to it, and shutting it down. Where it
+//! runs is `session::transport`'s business, not this file's: this one
+//! emits a `Launch` and never learns whether it became a local child or an
+//! ssh invocation.
 //! Turning a line into [`Event`]s is [`translate`], which changes when the
 //! CLI's wire format does rather than when any of the above does.
 //!
@@ -40,7 +43,8 @@ use tokio::io::{AsyncBufReadExt, AsyncWriteExt, BufReader};
 use tokio::sync::{mpsc, oneshot};
 
 use super::driver::{Driver, Event, EventSink, ImageRef, SessionStatus};
-use crate::config::{HostConfig, ProviderConfig, SessionConfig};
+use super::transport::{Launch, Transport};
+use crate::config::{ProviderConfig, SessionConfig};
 use translate::{AnswerOutcome, Translator};
 
 /// Where the driver remembers its CLI session id between backend runs --
@@ -70,7 +74,7 @@ impl ClaudeDriver {
     pub fn spawn(
         meta: &SessionConfig,
         provider: &ProviderConfig,
-        host: Option<&HostConfig>,
+        transport: &Transport,
         session_dir: &Path,
         sink: EventSink,
     ) -> Result<Self> {
@@ -96,25 +100,13 @@ impl ClaudeDriver {
         args.push("--include-partial-messages".to_string());
 
         let program = provider.command.as_deref().unwrap_or("claude");
-        let cwd = meta.cwd.as_deref();
+        let launch = Launch::new(program, args, meta.cwd.as_deref());
-        let where_it_runs = match host {
+        let mut child = transport.spawn(&launch)?;
-            Some(host) => format!("on {} ({})", host.name, host.address),
+        tracing::info!(
-            None => "on this machine".to_string(),
+            "session {} running {program} {}",
-        };
+            meta.id,
-        let mut child = crate::ssh::command(host, program, &args, cwd)
+            transport.describe()
-            .spawn()
+        );
-            .with_context(|| match host {
-                Some(host) => format!(
-                    "couldn't start ssh to run \"{program}\" on {} -- is the ssh client \
-                     installed here?",
-                    host.name
-                ),
-                None => format!(
-                    "couldn't run \"{program}\" on this machine -- is it installed and on \
-                     PATH? If it lives on another machine, give the session a host to run on.",
-                ),
-            })?;
-        tracing::info!("session {} running {program} {where_it_runs}", meta.id);
 
         let stdin = child.stdin.take().expect("piped stdin");
         let stdout = child.stdout.take().expect("piped stdout");
@@ -168,7 +160,7 @@ impl ClaudeDriver {
         let (kill_tx, kill_rx) = oneshot::channel::<()>();
         {
             let sink = sink.clone();
-            let label = format!("{} {where_it_runs}", provider.name);
+            let label = format!("{} {}", provider.name, transport.describe());
             tokio::spawn(async move {
                 let status = tokio::select! {
                     status = child.wait() => status.ok(),

server/src/session/mod.rs

@@ -13,6 +13,7 @@ pub mod claude;
 pub mod driver;
 pub mod echo;
 pub mod transcript;
+pub mod transport;
 
 use std::collections::HashMap;
 use std::path::{Path, PathBuf};
@@ -28,6 +29,7 @@ use claude::ClaudeDriver;
 use driver::{Driver, Event, ImageRef, SessionStatus};
 use echo::EchoDriver;
 use transcript::{SeqEvent, Transcript};
+use transport::Transport;
 
 /// Fan-out buffer per session. A subscriber that falls further behind than
 /// this is caught up from the transcript file instead (see `routes`), so
@@ -472,7 +474,7 @@ fn launch(
         DriverKind::ClaudeCli => Box::new(ClaudeDriver::spawn(
             &meta,
             provider,
-            host,
+            &Transport::for_host(host),
             &dir,
             sink.clone(),
         )?),

server/src/session/transport.rs

@@ -0,0 +1,102 @@
+//! Where a session's process runs, and the only place that knows how.
+//!
+//! A driver says *what* to run -- a [`Launch`] -- and hands it here.
+//! Whether that becomes a child of this process or an `ssh host …`
+//! invocation is settled in this module, so a driver carries no transport
+//! knowledge and a second one cannot forget to handle the remote case. It
+//! also means the wrapping is honest about drivers that run nothing at
+//! all: `EchoDriver` builds no [`Launch`], so there is nothing to wrap and
+//! no host for it to appear to honour.
+//!
+//! The quoting, the forced ssh options and the remote script are
+//! `crate::ssh`'s, which this dispatches to. That split is deliberate:
+//! this module decides *which* transport, that one knows what a correct
+//! ssh invocation is.
+//!
+//! Known second operation, not built because nothing needs it yet: a
+//! managed `llama-server` is spawned as a process but then spoken to over
+//! HTTP, so a remote one needs a forwarded port (`ssh -L`) as well. A
+//! transport is eventually "run this" plus "reach this port", where the
+//! second is a no-op locally. See PLAN.md's SSH section.
+
+use std::path::{Path, PathBuf};
+
+use anyhow::{Context, Result};
+use tokio::process::Child;
+
+use crate::config::HostConfig;
+
+/// What a driver needs run in order to exist as a process.
+///
+/// Deliberately just the three things every transport can carry. Anything
+/// a particular machine needs -- a port, a key, extra ssh options -- is
+/// the transport's own configuration, not something a driver states.
+pub struct Launch {
+    pub program: String,
+    pub args: Vec<String>,
+    pub cwd: Option<PathBuf>,
+}
+
+impl Launch {
+    pub fn new(program: impl Into<String>, args: Vec<String>, cwd: Option<&Path>) -> Self {
+        Self {
+            program: program.into(),
+            args,
+            cwd: cwd.map(Path::to_path_buf),
+        }
+    }
+}
+
+/// The machine a session's process runs on.
+pub enum Transport {
+    /// The machine this server is running on.
+    Here,
+    /// Reached with the system `ssh` client. Owns its host entry rather
+    /// than borrowing it, so a session keeps working against the config it
+    /// was spawned with even if that entry is edited afterwards.
+    Ssh(HostConfig),
+}
+
+impl Transport {
+    /// The transport a session's configured host names; absent is [`Self::Here`].
+    pub fn for_host(host: Option<&HostConfig>) -> Self {
+        match host {
+            Some(host) => Self::Ssh(host.clone()),
+            None => Self::Here,
+        }
+    }
+
+    /// Starts `launch`, with stdio piped and the child killed on drop.
+    ///
+    /// The failure names what to check, and the two transports fail for
+    /// genuinely different reasons -- a missing ssh client here versus a
+    /// program that is not on the remote PATH -- so each says its own
+    /// thing rather than one message hedging between them.
+    pub fn spawn(&self, launch: &Launch) -> Result<Child> {
+        let host = match self {
+            Self::Here => None,
+            Self::Ssh(host) => Some(host),
+        };
+        crate::ssh::command(host, &launch.program, &launch.args, launch.cwd.as_deref())
+            .spawn()
+            .with_context(|| match self {
+                Self::Ssh(host) => format!(
+                    "couldn't start ssh to run \"{}\" on {} -- is the ssh client installed here?",
+                    launch.program, host.name,
+                ),
+                Self::Here => format!(
+                    "couldn't run \"{}\" on this machine -- is it installed and on PATH? If it \
+                     lives on another machine, give the session a host to run on.",
+                    launch.program,
+                ),
+            })
+    }
+
+    /// How to say where this runs, for a log line a person reads.
+    pub fn describe(&self) -> String {
+        match self {
+            Self::Here => "on this machine".to_string(),
+            Self::Ssh(host) => format!("on {} ({})", host.name, host.address),
+        }
+    }
+}