Confusing interactive shell behaviour on remote directory

[RayMatsuo]

What system are you running Yazi on?

Windows

What terminal are you running Yazi in?

wezterm 20250730-195751-6a493f88

yazi --debug output

Yazi
    Version  : 26.5.6 (aa52643 2026-05-05)
    Debug    : false
    Triple   : x86_64-pc-windows-msvc (windows-x86_64)
    Rustc    : 1.95.0 (59807616 2026-04-14)
    Backtrace: None

Ya
    Version: 26.5.6 (aa52643 2026-05-05)

Config
    Init             : C:\Users\username\AppData\Roaming\yazi\config\init.lua (The system cannot find the file specified. (os error 2))
    Yazi             : C:\Users\username\AppData\Roaming\yazi\config\yazi.toml (The system cannot find the file specified. (os error 2))
    Keymap           : C:\Users\username\AppData\Roaming\yazi\config\keymap.toml (The system cannot find the file specified. (os error 2))
    Theme            : C:\Users\username\AppData\Roaming\yazi\config\theme.toml (The system cannot find the file specified. (os error 2))
    VFS              : C:\Users\username\AppData\Roaming\yazi\config\vfs.toml (836 chars)
    Package          : C:\Users\username\AppData\Roaming\yazi\config\package.toml (The system cannot find the file specified. (os error 2))
    Dark/light flavor: ArcSwapAny("") / ArcSwapAny("")

Emulator
    TERM                : Some("xterm-256color")
    TERM_PROGRAM        : Some("WezTerm")
    TERM_PROGRAM_VERSION: Some("20250730-195751-6a493f88")
    Brand.from_env      : Some(WezTerm)
    Emulator.detect     : Emulator { kind: Left(WezTerm), version: "WezTerm 20250730-195751-6a493f88", light: false, csi_16t: (9, 20), force_16t: true }

Adapter
    Adapter.matches    : Iip
    Dimension.available: Dimension { rows: 48, columns: 208, width: 0, height: 0 }

Desktop
    XDG_SESSION_TYPE           : None
    WAYLAND_DISPLAY            : None
    DISPLAY                    : None
    SWAYSOCK                   : None
    HYPRLAND_INSTANCE_SIGNATURE: None
    WAYFIRE_SOCKET             : None

SSH
    shared.in_ssh_connection: false

WSL
    WSL: false

Variables
    SHELL              : None
    EDITOR             : None
    VISUAL             : None
    YAZI_FILE_ONE      : None
    YAZI_CONFIG_HOME   : None
    YAZI_ZOXIDE_OPTS   : None
    SSH_AUTH_SOCK      : Some("C:\\Users\\username\\.local/share/wezterm\\agent.17488")
    FZF_DEFAULT_OPTS   : None
    FZF_DEFAULT_COMMAND: None

Text Opener
    default     : Some(OpenerRule { id: Id(4), run: NonEmptyString("code %s"), block: false, orphan: true, desc: "code", for: Windows, spread: true })
    block-create: Some(OpenerRule { id: Id(5), run: NonEmptyString("code -w %s"), block: true, orphan: false, desc: "code (block)", for: Windows, spread: true })
    block-rename: Some(OpenerRule { id: Id(5), run: NonEmptyString("code -w %s"), block: true, orphan: false, desc: "code (block)", for: Windows, spread: true })

Multiplexers
    TMUX               : false
    tmux version       : program not found
    tmux build flags   : enable-sixel=Unknown
    ZELLIJ_SESSION_NAME: None
    Zellij version     : program not found

Dependencies
    file          : 5.44
    ueberzugpp    : program not found
    ffmpeg/ffprobe: 8.0 / 8.0
    pdftoppm      : 26.02.0
    magick        : 7.1.1-24
    fzf           : 0.72.0
    fd/fdfind     : 10.4.2 / program not found
    rg            : 15.1.0
    chafa         : 1.18.2
    zoxide        : 0.9.9
    7zz/7z        : program not found / 26.01
    resvg         : program not found
    jq            : 1.8.1

Clipboard
    wl-copy/paste: program not found / program not found
    xclip        : program not found
    xsel         : program not found

Routine
    `file -bL --mime-type`: text/plain


See https://yazi-rs.github.io/docs/plugins/overview#debugging on how to enable logging or debug runtime errors.

Describe the question

I was uploading a file through sftp to a remote server, but all the uploaded files had permission of 200.

I naively thought I could just run the chmod in interactive shell, but whenever I tried it just gave me the following error.
chmod: cannot access 'insert_valid_filename': No such file or directory Exited with status code: 1 Process failed

And to add to the confusion some command such as touch run without any error, but I could not see the effect on neither remote directory nor the directory I started yazi.

Eventually I figured out that all the commands were actually run in temp folder, (e.g. C:\Users\username\AppData\Local\Temp\yazi-0) and all the files created through touch were there.

I was wondering if this was an intended feature, since I could not find any mention of it in the documentation and it was a very confusion behaviour.

Anything else?

No response

Checklist

• I have read all the documentation
• I have searched the existing discussions/issues

[wellkilo]

This is expected for an external process opened while browsing a remote VFS directory.

An OS process can only have a local filesystem path as its current directory; it cannot chdir to an SFTP URL. Yazi maps the remote URL to its local cache bucket before launching the shell. The runner calls Cwd::ensure(remote_url) and then Command.current_dir(cwd): shell.rs. Cwd::ensure creates/returns the cache path under Yazi's temporary area: cwd.rs.

Consequently:

• touch creates a local cache file; it is not automatically an SFTP create operation.
• chmod filename targets that local cache and fails when the remote entry is not materialized there.
• local shell tools cannot transparently mutate remote permissions.

Use Yazi's built-in VFS operations for supported file actions. For chmod, invoke a real remote command with an explicit path, for example:

ssh host -- chmod 600 -- '/remote/path/file'

or write a plugin using Yazi's SFTP/VFS API. Running a local interactive shell “inside” the remote directory would require a mounted filesystem or an SSH shell session, so the temp cwd is an intentional transport boundary even though it deserves clearer UI/documentation.