Fake Provider

The Fake provider is a deterministic, in-process test harness that implements the full Sidemesh provider contract. It is used for contract testing, CI, and reproducing specific UI states without a real agent.

Usage

Run with the environment variable:

SIDEMESH_PROVIDER=fake npm run daemon

Or select it during setup with the --dev flag:

npm run setup -- --dev

Prompt keywords

Type these keywords into the chat to trigger specific behaviors:

Keyword	Behavior
tools	Command output, terminal input, file change, turn diff, and web search
approval:command	Pending command approval
approval:file	Pending file-change approval
approval:permissions	Pending permissions approval
image	Image generation activity
slow	Delayed streaming
fail	Failed turn completion

Capability profiles

Set SIDEMESH_FAKE_CAPABILITY_PROFILE to narrow advertised capabilities:

Profile	Capabilities
full	Everything
chat-only	No tools, no files
no-files	No filesystem
no-model-controls	No model/profile/skill lists
no-approvals	No approval gating
minimal	Bare minimum

Use cases

• Automated UI tests in CI
• Screenshot generation for marketing
• Reproducing bug reports with exact steps
• Dogfooding non-Codex behavior before a real adapter exists