Root-cause fix for the live-session friction where "how many sites are on
qa?" stalled on repeated `export $HCIROOT` nags despite a working `qa` SSH
alias:
1. $HCIROOT login-shell fix: ssh-helper.sh `exec` now wraps remote commands in
`bash -lc` so the Cloverleaf login profile sources and $HCIROOT/$HCISITE/PATH
populate as for an interactive operator login. Escape hatch: NOLOGIN prefix
or LARRY_SSH_NO_LOGIN=1. pull-smat find/sample use the same wrapper.
2. Both-mode detection: startup surfaces a MODE= line (LOCAL / REMOTE / UNKNOWN)
and leads with what it found instead of asking for paths.
3. First-class list_sites tool + /sites [alias]: enumerates sites in both modes
(hcisitelist fast-path, NetConfig-walk fallback) via new ssh-helper discover.
4. System-prompt de-nagging: agents/larry.md + env-diff/regression prompts no
longer tell Larry to ask Bryan to export $HCIROOT for a reachable host.
5. Streaming slowness (dominant residual): new pure-bash _json_str_decode
un-escapes the common escape-free delta with zero forks, halving per-turn
jq forks on top of v0.8.12. Round-trip verified.
6. pull-smat path capture hardened (Vera Minor #1): resolved path now emitted
behind a SMATDB_PATH: sentinel and selected by pattern not position, so a
login-shell MOTD/banner on stdout can't be mistaken for the path; falls back
to prior tail -1 when no sentinel present. Selection logic unit-verified.
Vera gate: PASS-WITH-NOTES (v0.8.13). bash -n clean on larry.sh + ssh-helper.sh;
MANIFEST regenerated (48 entries) and --check clean.
Co-Authored-By: Clover (Claude Opus 4.7) <noreply@anthropic.com>