fix: restore main to green after #1723 — memory-core linter and worker-scope Step 5f

[DeusData]

Restores main to a green memory-core linter. Until this lands, lint / lint is red on every PR and pr.yml skips the whole test stage behind it.

What broke

src/mcp/mcp.c: grew by 3 (814 -> 817)

#1723 (merged as 92abefa) added an early-return path to handle_index_repository and, following the function's convention, freed its three argument strings there with raw free(). Its CI lint was green on 2026-09-09; on 2026-09-19 the memwaste merge cut this file's raw sites and ratcheted the baseline down to 814. By the time #1723 landed, its green had been measured against a rule that no longer existed.

The merge-result verification that let it through was incomplete — it built and ran five suites and did not run the linter. It does now.

Why the fix is not cbm_free

The three strings are raw heap memory from cbm_mcp_get_string_arg, freed raw by every other path in the function. Routing three of them through the core would free raw memory through the accounting layer — a real bug in place of a linter complaint.

The actual defect: the function had 41 raw free() calls of the same three arguments across a dozen early returns, and #1723 added one more block in the same shape.

The fix

One helper, index_args_free(repo_path, mode_str, name_override), replaces twelve of those blocks. free(NULL) is a no-op, so the one path where repo_path is still NULL passes NULL. On the cross-repo branch mode_str was freed before handle_cross_repo_mode and the other two after; it is neither passed to nor read by that call, so releasing all three after is not observable. Five sites on the normal-completion path are deliberately left alone — they release the strings at different points as ownership is handed to the pipeline.

Raw sites: 817 → 785. The baseline follows, 814 → 785, as the linter's own output asks. It can only tighten.

Verification

• python3 scripts/lint-memory-core.py → passed: 3806 raw sites across 85 files, none grew
• Build clean under -Werror, ASan/UBSan
• mcp cli daemon_application → 692 passed, 4 skipped, 0 failed, including index_repository_honors_allowed_root, which runs through a replaced early return

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Second commit: the test stage was red too, hidden behind the lint failure

Once lint went green here the test stage ran for the first time since #1723 merged, and failed on every platform at scripts/test.sh Step 5f:

=== Step 5f: worker request-scope regression ===
worker did not index the admitted repository
{"content":[{"type":"text","text":"missing or incomplete trusted worker policy"}], ... "isError":true}

Same kind of collision as the linter one. #1723 made an index worker refuse a request without _cbm_index_policy (the supervisor resolves the policy and sends it; a worker never reads it from config or environment). tests/test_worker_session_scope.sh (a08b9ec, 2026-09-06) plays the supervisor by hand and sent only repo_path + mode. #1723's branch never contained that script, so the two never ran together until they met on main.

The worker is right; the script now sends what a supervisor sends — both limits off, the default, the same object tests/test_index_policy.c uses. The fail-closed case carries it as well, so a request without repo_path is still refused for its missing scope, not by accident for a missing policy. No assertion changed.

• RED locally (production binary from this branch, script unmodified): identical output to CI, rc=1.
• GREEN: ok: index worker is scoped to the admitted request, not the daemon environment, rc=0.
• On the failed run, 12 of the 13 red test jobs carry exactly this signature and nothing else. The 13th, test-windows-guards, is test_daemon_stability.py section_cold_storm ("secure CLI coordination could not be created (endpoint)") — a known nondeterministic guard, unrelated to either commit.
• Step 6, which Step 5f kept CI from reaching, passes locally (security-strings allow-list 4/4, destructive-ordering contract PASS).

Process note. Two reds from one merge, both invisible to a textually clean merge and to a green that predated the code it collided with. The merge-result check now runs the linter and scripts/test.sh's process-level steps, not only the unit suites.