[ovidius72]

Why

An application embedding agent-comms needs to keep its keys and grants separate from an existing installation. slot.dir moves device-slot files, but the bridge factory still loads the shared account and machine keys from the default directory.

Changes

• Add IdentitySlot.dataDir for all persistent mesh data and AGENT_COMMS_DATA_DIR as the default for shipped bridges and account commands.
• Resolve the directory in one place and reuse the existing identity, trust, naming and ledger functions.
• Require absolute paths for environment and explicit directories. Reject relative paths, literal ~ paths and empty explicit overrides with an error naming AGENT_COMMS_DATA_DIR.
• Keep ~/.agent-comms when the environment setting is absent or blank. Preserve the existing scope of slot.dir.
• Use the same slot for identity loading, fronted identities and lock release. No per-bridge changes or data migration.

Verification

• 24 new tests cover directory precedence, non-absolute path rejection, all four bridge factories, unchanged existing data, separate identities, account export/import, a real two-peer room message, restart persistence and grant revocation.
• Lint, typecheck and the full test suite: 1,881 tests across 211 files passed.
• Build, 7 delivery tests, the multi-process smoke test and 53 browser tests.

Checks on fork PRs

My previous fork PR #335 had no workflow runs and was recreated as #394 so checks could run. Maintainer edits are enabled on this PR; please approve the fork workflows if approval is needed.

[Mearman]

Thanks for this. I merged it onto current main locally: typecheck and the 13 new tests pass, lint is clean for the touched files, and every shipped bridge, the CLI account commands and the cc-peer front pick the setting up through the default resolver. One edge to close before merge, inline below.

[github-actions]

🎉 This PR is included in version 8.14.0 🎉

The release is available on:

• npm package (@latest dist-tag)
• v8.14.0
• GitHub release

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