GhostScope v0.1.6

Overview

GhostScope v0.1.6 focuses on execution context: not only printing live values, but also showing how execution reached the probe point.

This release adds DWARF-backed stack backtraces to the scripting workflow and continues hardening GhostScope for production-style runtime diagnostics. The main user-facing change is that a trace script can now combine a normal print line with bt / backtrace, so a live probe can answer both "what state is here?" and "which call path brought the process here?" without stopping the target.

Highlights

• Added DWARF-unwound bt / backtrace support for GhostScope scripts
• Added bt full output for symbolized, source-aware stack frames and bt raw output for lower-level frame metadata
• Added backtrace support to repeatable CLI script workflows, including --script-file demos that combine request state with call context
• Added runtime module refresh support for backtraces, including modules loaded later through dlopen
• Improved multi-module and target-mode backtrace handling, including better behavior when the stack crosses module boundaries
• Expanded backtrace coverage for PID mode, target mode, combined -t -p sessions, and container/PID-namespace scenarios
• Added runtime backtrace CFI map sharing so multiple trace loaders can use the same prepared unwind metadata more safely
• Improved debug-info loading and reporting, including explicit debug-file handling, stricter debuglink matching, and clearer missing/unusable debug-info diagnostics
• Improved script output rendering for backtrace payloads in plain and pretty output modes
• Updated the README and runtime-analysis skill examples to show that GhostScope can inspect both live values and source-aware call stacks

Bug Fixes

This release also includes correctness and reliability fixes across the tracing pipeline, including:

• Fixed trace context overflow handling so oversized trace metadata returns a clear error
• Fixed source shortcut parsing in Input Mode
• Fixed packaging so CLI scripting documentation is included correctly
• Fixed target-mode backtraces in child-container topologies
• Fixed runtime CFI map and sysmon fallback safety for backtrace paths
• Fixed target dlopen module refresh behavior for backtraces
• Fixed runtime module identity checks so mismatched proc-root module identities are rejected instead of silently reused
• Fixed handling for unusable debuglink files so they are treated as missing debug information
• Fixed explicit debug-file loading for DWARF-backed tracing
• Fixed disabled traces so loading a saved trace set preserves disabled state
• Updated supply-chain dependencies, including RustSec-related dependency bumps

What's Next

Next, I plan to focus on reducing startup cost for production diagnostics by moving expensive DWARF/script preparation out of the hot attach path.

The next milestones are:

• a non-privileged prepare mode that builds reusable trace bundles
• a run-bundle attach path for faster production tracing
• a longer-term remote/daemon workflow that can keep target metadata warm across repeated attach requests

See Issue #240 for the tracking discussion.