github / github/copilot-cli

Hooks from a live path-sourced plugin do not run in a resumed session (regression in 1.0.81-8)

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area:plugins area:sessions
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Description

Summary

With a plugin installed from a local directory marketplace, its hook commands run in a fresh session but not in a resumed one. Starting a session with --session-id runs the hooks; resuming that same session with --resume=<id> runs none of them, for the rest of the session's life.

Everything below is black-box observation on a single machine, changing one variable at a time. I have not looked at the cause.

Versions

Version Behavior
1.0.81-1 hooks run in both a fresh and a resumed session
1.0.81-2 same
1.0.81-3 … 1.0.81-7 not tested
1.0.81-8 hooks do not run in a resumed session
1.0.81-9 same
1.0.81-11 same

OS: Windows 11, PowerShell 7. Verified by running the same probe plugin against 1.0.81-1 and 1.0.81-11 on the same machine — the only variable changed was the CLI binary.

Note when bisecting: the CLI auto-updates on startup and will overwrite a pinned npm install @github/copilot@<version> in place, which makes a version A/B silently compare a version against itself. --no-auto-update / COPILOT_AUTO_UPDATE=false is required, and it is worth asserting on the version the run actually logged.

Reproduction

Self-contained. Creates a throwaway local directory marketplace with one plugin whose only hook appends a line to a file. The hook body has no dependencies, so a line can only appear if the CLI started the command.

$ErrorActionPreference = 'Stop'
$root = Join-Path $env:TEMP 'hookrepro'
Remove-Item $root -Recurse -Force -ErrorAction SilentlyContinue
# Forward slashes: the path is embedded in JSON, where "\U" etc. is not a valid escape.
$marker = (Join-Path $root 'fired.txt').Replace('\', '/')
New-Item -ItemType Directory (Join-Path $root 'demo-hooks\hooks') -Force | Out-Null
New-Item -ItemType Directory (Join-Path $root '.github\plugin') -Force | Out-Null
New-Item -ItemType File $marker -Force | Out-Null

Set-Content (Join-Path $root '.github\plugin\marketplace.json') @"
{ "name": "demo-market", "owner": { "name": "demo" },
  "plugins": [ { "name": "demo-hooks", "version": "0.0.1", "source": "./demo-hooks" } ] }
"@

Set-Content (Join-Path $root 'demo-hooks\plugin.json') @"
{ "name": "demo-hooks", "version": "0.0.1", "hooks": "hooks/hooks.json" }
"@

Set-Content (Join-Path $root 'demo-hooks\hooks\hooks.json') @"
{ "hooks": { "UserPromptSubmit": [ { "matcher": ".*", "hooks": [
  { "type": "command", "timeoutSec": 10,
    "powershell": "Add-Content -LiteralPath '$marker' -Value 'fired'; exit 0" } ] } ] } }
"@

copilot plugin marketplace add $root
copilot plugin install demo-hooks@demo-market

$sid = [guid]::NewGuid().ToString()
copilot --no-auto-update --allow-all-tools --session-id $sid -p 'say hi' | Out-Null
"fresh  -> hook fired $((Get-Content $marker | Measure-Object).Count) time(s)"

copilot --no-auto-update --allow-all-tools --resume=$sid -p 'say hi again' | Out-Null
"resume -> hook fired $((Get-Content $marker | Measure-Object).Count) time(s) total"

copilot plugin uninstall demo-hooks@demo-market
copilot plugin marketplace remove demo-market

Expected

fresh  -> hook fired 1 time(s)
resume -> hook fired 2 time(s) total

Actual on 1.0.81-8 and later

fresh  -> hook fired 1 time(s)
resume -> hook fired 1 time(s) total

On 1.0.81-1 the same script prints the expected output.

A prompt is submitted and answered in both runs, so UserPromptSubmit is expected in both. It is observed only in the fresh run.

What was measured

Using a probe plugin declaring seven hook events, where each hook writes a file recording its event name, its PID, and the session id it received on stdin:

=== FRESH SESSION (session 12cbfa43) ===
  hook commands started : 4
      SessionStart, UserPromptSubmit, Stop, SessionEnd

=== RESUMED SESSION (session 12cbfa43) ===
  hook commands started : 0

Same binary, same plugin, same hook definitions, same session id. PreToolUse, PostToolUse and Notification did not run in either case, which is expected for a prompt that uses no tools and raises no notification.

For whatever it is worth to whoever picks this up, the CLI's own log at --log-level all reports a different hook count for the two runs, while reporting the same plugin discovery result:

fresh:  [DEBUG] Plugin activation [agents]: fingerprint=b1da9033d7a0, plugins=2, loaded=0
        [DEBUG] loadDeferredRepoHooks(896fb99e-f0f2-4cdc-98e6-256756c810bd): loaded repo hooks (hookCount=17)

resume: [DEBUG] Plugin activation [agents]: fingerprint=6613ac1c406c, plugins=2, loaded=0
        [DEBUG] loadDeferredRepoHooks(896fb99e-f0f2-4cdc-98e6-256756c810bd): loaded repo hooks (hookCount=5)

That number moves one-for-one with the number of hook events the probe plugin declares — measured at 0, 1, 3 and 7 events, giving 10, 11, 13 and 17 against a baseline of 10 on this machine. I am not going to guess what it means internally.

Scope: which plugins are affected

Same plugin, same hook definition, same machine, CLI 1.0.81-11 — only the way the plugin is loaded changes:

How the plugin is loaded Section in copilot plugin list Hooks run after resume
Path-sourced plugin in a directory-source marketplace Live Plugins (loaded from a local marketplace directory, never copied) no
Installed from a GitHub repo, copied into ~/.copilot/installed-plugins Installed plugins yes
--plugin-dir External Plugins (via --plugin-dir) yes

For the copied plugin the marker file goes 1 after the fresh session and 2 after the resume; for the live path-sourced plugin it stays at 1.

So this is not marketplace plugins in general — copied marketplace and repo plugins are unaffected.

1.0.81-8 is also the release whose notes record:

Path-sourced plugins in a local (directory-source) marketplace now load live from their real directory, so editing one takes effect on /restart or a new session — no /plugin update

I am reporting that only as a timing coincidence worth checking, not as a diagnosis.

Secondary symptom that makes this hard to recognize

In an interactive resume the CLI first boots a throwaway session before switching to the resumed one, and that throwaway session does run the plugin's hooks. Its SessionEnd fires after the resumed session is already active and carries the throwaway session's id, not the resumed one.

An external process watching hook output therefore sees exactly one event, tagged with a session id it has never seen, and then nothing at all. That reads as "resume only emits SessionEnd" and sends you looking in the wrong place.

Impact

Any plugin that uses hooks for session lifecycle tracking, telemetry, notifications, or external integration silently stops working the moment a user resumes a session, with no error and no warning. A local directory marketplace is the natural way to ship hooks alongside an application, and --continue / --resume is the normal way to pick work back up, so the combination is common and the failure is invisible from inside the CLI.

Contributor guide

Open the contributing guide

First steps

  1. Read the whole issue, then the project's contributing guide.
  2. Comment on the issue to say you are picking it up — it saves two people doing the same work.
  3. Fork the repository and make your change on a branch.
  4. Open a pull request that references the issue number.

Research direction

Reproduce the PowerShell script with --no-auto-update and compare fresh versus resumed output and --log-level all logs. Start at the plugin activation and loadDeferredRepoHooks entries, then trace why a live path-sourced plugin reports fewer hooks after resume. Done means the same plugin fires its expected lifecycle hooks in both fresh and resumed sessions without affecting copied or --plugin-dir plugins.

Written by the indexing model from the issue text.

Assessment

Tech stack
powershell, shell
Domain
cli, tooling
Issue type
Bug
Difficulty
4/5
Estimated time
3-5 days
Activity status
Active
Clarity
Clearly specified
Newbie friendliness
55/100

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