Michael Suchacz
fc24c27dfd
## Context Follow-up fix from live UAT of the merged chat lifecycle hooks stack (#27430). Its companion UAT fix (#27655) has merged, so this targets `main` directly. ## Why? UAT measured a burst of 1,500 concurrent chat creations against a consumer with 1.2s latency. 255 were admitted and 1,245 got `502 hook_dispatch_failed (over_capacity)`, which is correct fail-closed behavior. The collateral wasn't: the same burst failed 24 `stop` dispatches, parking chats that had already been admitted and had already executed tools. One 256-slot semaphore served every event, so new-work admission could take every slot and kill turns in flight. Callers now classify each dispatch as admission or generation, and admission draws from a 192-slot gate held *before* the shared pool. At least 64 shared slots stay reachable only by dispatches for work a chat already admitted. The dispatcher is per `coderd` replica, so these limits are per replica, not deployment-wide, and the docs say so. **The caller classifies, not the event type.** Event type isn't a reliable proxy in either direction: a subagent spawn dispatches `user_prompt_submit` from inside a running turn, and the edit path dispatches `session_start` at admission time. `CapacityClassUnset` is rejected in `Dispatch`, so a new call site fails closed rather than silently inheriting a share. **Acquisition order is load-bearing.** Admission takes its own gate first. Taking a shared slot first would let admissions queued on the gate occupy the very capacity the reserve protects. `acquireCapacity` is the only path that takes either pool, so the order can't be bypassed. ## What this does not guarantee Nothing bounds how many turns generate concurrently, so the 192/64 split is a judgement call, not a derived ceiling. This stops an *admission* burst from consuming every slot; it does not make the remainder sufficient. A large enough generation load can still exhaust the reserve and error a running chat. The docs say so explicitly rather than promising a guarantee the code doesn't deliver. Generation can now take all 256 slots, so generation traffic starves admission harder than before. That's the intended priority: rejecting a new prompt is recoverable, ending a turn that already ran tools is not. ## Testing Red-green proved both new tests. Removing the release-on-failure path fails `RefusedSharedAcquireReleasesAdmission` deterministically; removing the expired-deadline check fails `ExpiredDeadlineRefusesFreeSlot` in 18/30 runs. That deadline check fixes a real race found in review. `acquire` previously shared one `time.Timer` across both acquires. Because `select` picks a ready case at random, an admission dispatch could take a slot after its capacity deadline had passed. Measured over 300 trials: 135 late acquisitions, worst overshoot 2.1ms. `acquire` now takes an absolute deadline and refuses an expired one before selecting, which measures 0/300. Go: `coderd/x/agenthooks/...` and `coderd/x/chatd/...`, plus `-race -count=3` on the dispatcher. > Mux opened this PR on Mike's behalf.
About
Coder is a self-hosted platform for running AI coding agents and cloud development environments on infrastructure you control. It works with any cloud, IDE, OS, Git provider, and IDP.
Coder Workspaces
Coder Workspaces are cloud development environments defined with Terraform, connected through a secure Wireguard tunnel, and automatically shut down when not in use. Agents and developers share the same workspace infrastructure.
- Defined in Terraform: Templates describe the infrastructure for each workspace, from EC2 VMs and Kubernetes Pods to Docker containers.
- Any architecture and OS: Support ARM and x86-64 across Windows, Linux, and macOS from a single deployment.
- Managed by admins: Platform teams create and maintain templates that enforce approved images, resource limits, and security policies.
- Accessed from any IDE: Connect through VS Code, JetBrains, Cursor, a web terminal, remote desktop, or SSH.
- Automatic shutdown: Idle workspaces stop automatically to reduce cloud spend, and restart in seconds when needed.
Coder Agents
Coder Agents is a native AI coding agent built into Coder. The agent loop runs in the Coder control plane on your infrastructure, not in the workspace and not in a vendor's cloud. Developers interact with agents through the web UI or the REST API for programmatic and CI-driven workflows.
- Self-hosted agent loop: The control plane handles planning, model calls, and tool dispatch. Workspaces have zero AI awareness.
- No API keys in workspaces: LLM credentials stay in the control plane.
- Any model: Anthropic, OpenAI, Google, Bedrock, or self-hosted endpoints. Switching is a configuration change.
- Governance and cost controls: Centralized model approval, per-user spend limits, and audit logging.
- Open source and inspectable: The full platform is available to audit and extend.
IDE support
You can use:
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Any Web IDE, such as
- code-server
- JetBrains Projector
- Jupyter
- And others
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Your existing remote development environment:
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A file sync such as Mutagen
Why remote development
Provisioning consistent development environments for a large engineering team is difficult. Each developer has preferences for operating systems, editors, and toolchains, and ensuring a reliable build environment across all of them is a maintenance burden. A missed step during onboarding or an unsupported local configuration can cost hours of debugging.
Remote development solves this by moving the environment off the developer's machine and into managed infrastructure. The developer's laptop becomes a portal into the actual compute where work happens. If a device is lost or replaced, access is simply revoked; no source code or credentials are stored locally.
This approach provides:
- Speed: Server-grade hardware accelerates builds, tests, and large workloads without requiring expensive local machines.
- Consistency: Infrastructure tools such as Terraform, nix, Docker, and Dev Containers produce identical environments for every developer.
- Security: Source code stays on private servers. Users and groups are managed through SSO and RBAC.
- Compatibility: Workspaces share infrastructure configurations with staging and production, reducing configuration drift.
- Accessibility: Browser-based IDEs and remote IDE extensions let developers work from any device, including lightweight laptops, Chromebooks, and tablets.
Read more on the Coder blog, the Slack engineering blog, or from Alex Ellis at OpenFaaS.
Why Coder
The key difference between Coder and other platforms is that the entire system, agent loop, control plane, model routing, and workspace provisioning, runs on infrastructure you control.
For agents, this means platform teams can:
- Run the entire agent loop on their infrastructure, with no SaaS dependency for orchestration.
- Define MCP servers, skills, and system prompts centrally so every agent session starts with the same tools, policies, and context.
- Keep LLM credentials out of workspaces entirely.
- Tie every agent action to an authenticated user identity.
- Support air-gapped and restricted-network deployments with self-hosted models.
For workspaces, this means admins can:
- Support any architecture (ARM, x86-64) and operating system (Windows, Linux, macOS).
- Modify pod/container specs, such as adding disks, managing network policies, or setting/updating environment variables.
- Use VM or dedicated workspaces, developing with Kernel features (no container knowledge required).
- Enable persistent workspaces, which are like local machines, but faster and hosted by a cloud service.
Pricing
Coder is free and open source under the GNU Affero General Public License v3.0. All developer productivity features are included in the open source version. A Premium license is available for enhanced support and custom deployments.
How Coder works
Coder workspaces are represented with Terraform, but you do not need to know Terraform to get started. The Coder Registry provides production-ready templates for AWS EC2, Azure, Google Cloud, Kubernetes, and other providers.
Providers and compute environments
Workspaces can include more than just compute. Terraform can add storage buckets, secrets, sidecars, and other resources.
See the templates documentation for details.
What Coder is not
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Coder is not an infrastructure as code (IaC) platform.
- Terraform is the first IaC provisioner in Coder, allowing Coder admins to define Terraform resources as Coder workspaces.
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Coder is not a DevOps/CI platform.
- Coder workspaces can be configured to follow best practices for cloud-service-based workloads, but Coder is not responsible for how you define or deploy the software you write.
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Coder is not an online IDE.
- Coder supports common editors, such as VS Code, vim, and JetBrains, all over HTTPS or SSH.
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Coder is not a collaboration platform.
- You can use Git with your favorite Git platform and dedicated IDE extensions for pull requests, code reviews, and pair programming.
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Coder is not a SaaS/fully-managed offering.
- Coder is a self-hosted solution. You must host Coder in a private data center or on a cloud service, such as AWS, Azure, or GCP.