grep_search: spurious "escapes workspace boundary" on first run in a directory with no .claw/ (Windows)

Summary

On Windows, the first grep_search in a working directory that does not yet contain a .claw/ directory fails with a workspace-boundary error. The reported "escaping" path and the boundary path are the same path, differing only by the \?\ extended-length prefix — which suggests the boundary check compares a plain path against a canonicalized/extended path without normalizing the prefix first.

Once .claw/ exists in that directory, subsequent grep_search calls succeed. So this reads as an initialization-order race rather than a permanent failure.

Error

✗ grep_search
ExecutionError { message: "path C:\tmp\clawpath\normaldir escapes workspace boundary \\?\C:\tmp\clawpath\normaldir", source: None }

Note both sides are C:\tmp\clawpath\normaldir; only the prefix differs.

Reproduction

$env:OPENAI_BASE_URL="http://localhost:1234/v1"   # any OpenAI-compatible local server
$env:OPENAI_API_KEY="local-dev-token"

mkdir C:\tmp\clawpath\brandnew
"hello TARGETSTRING here" | Set-Content C:\tmp\clawpath\brandnew\sample.txt
cd C:\tmp\clawpath\brandnew

claw --model "<your-local-model>" prompt "Use grep_search to find TARGETSTRING in this directory."

Observed

Reproduced on 2 of 3 fresh directories; 0 of 3 already-initialized directories. The one fresh directory that succeeded had .claw/sessions/*.jsonl already flushed by the time grep ran, which is consistent with a race between workspace initialization and the tool's boundary check.

Expected

grep_search should resolve/normalize both paths (strip or apply the \?\ prefix consistently) before the containment comparison, and should not depend on .claw/ already existing.

Impact

read_file works in the same directory where grep_search fails, so the failure is partial and easy to misread as a model/tool-calling problem rather than a harness bug — it cost us some misdiagnosis while evaluating local models.

Environment

• Claw Code v0.1.3 (git 4ea31c1bc91c), built from source
• Windows 10 Pro 19045, rustc/cargo 1.97.1, MSVC (VS Build Tools 2019)
• Provider: local OpenAI-compatible server (LM Studio, :1234)

Workaround

Run any command that initializes .claw/ in the directory first, then grep_search works.

Start by reproducing the Windows fresh-directory case using the grep_search entry point, then trace its workspace-boundary check alongside first-run .claw/ initialization. Done means the first search succeeds in a directory without .claw/ and path containment works consistently for plain and extended-length Windows paths.