agent-orchestrator/docs
Ashish Huddar 8d0c53ec1d
fix(codex): reliable activity signals — session-flag hooks, trust bypass, no_signal watchdog (#170)
* fix(codex): deliver activity hooks via -c session flags, trust worktree at launch

Codex (0.136+) never loads hook config from AO's per-session worktrees:
project-local .codex/ layers only load from trusted directories, and for
linked git worktrees codex sources hook declarations from the matching
folder in the root checkout — so the workspace-local .codex/hooks.json AO
wrote was dead config and codex sessions never reported activity.

Deliver the hooks on the launch/resume command instead:
- -c 'hooks.<Event>=[...]' session-flag config for SessionStart,
  UserPromptSubmit, PermissionRequest, and Stop; the session-flags layer
  is not trust-gated and aggregates with the user's own hooks. The
  existing --dangerously-bypass-hook-trust flag lets them run without a
  persisted trust hash.
- -c 'projects={"<worktree>"={trust_level="trusted"}}' (inline-table
  form; the dotted projects."<path>".trust_level key is corrupted by
  codex's naive -c dot-split) so spawns into never-trusted repos don't
  hang invisibly on the interactive directory-trust prompt. Both the
  literal and symlink-resolved worktree paths are trusted.
- -c notice.hide_rate_limit_model_nudge=true so the "switch to a cheaper
  model?" dialog can't hang a headless pane and swallow the spawn prompt.

GetAgentHooks no longer writes workspace files (worktrees stay clean); it
only strips entries older AO versions left in .codex/hooks.json,
preserving user hooks. UninstallHooks/AreHooksInstalled now operate on
those legacy files only.

Verified with a real spawn into a fresh untrusted repo: activity
transitions idle -> active -> idle hands-free, no .codex dir in the
worktree, no hook delivery failures.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Fable 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>

* feat(sessions): activity-signal watchdog + hook delivery hardening

A codex upgrade broke activity tracking silently: sessions showed a
confident "idle" forever while the agent worked. This bundle makes hook
delivery verifiable end to end and makes any future breakage loud
instead of invisible.

Watchdog (no_signal status):
- sessions.first_signal_at (migration 0010) records the FIRST hook
  callback per spawn/restore — raw signal receipt, independent of the
  derived activity state. lifecycle.ApplyActivitySignal stamps it (and
  writes through same-state repeats until stamped, e.g. Codex
  SessionStart reporting idle on an idle-seeded row); MarkSpawned clears
  it so every relaunch re-proves its hook pipeline.
- deriveStatus downgrades a live session with no receipt to the new
  no_signal display status after a 90s grace, instead of idle.
  Terminated/PR-derived statuses still win. The sessions CDC update
  trigger now also fires on first-signal receipt so the dashboard
  transition is pushed live.
- frontend maps no_signal -> needs_you (a human should look at the pane).

Hook callback hardening (re-landed from the closed redesign PR #156):
- the session manager pins each spawned session's PATH with the daemon
  executable's directory first, so the bare `ao` in hook commands
  resolves to the daemon that installed them, with a spawn-time warning
  when the pin cannot apply.
- `ao hooks` failures append to $AO_DATA_DIR/hooks.log (size-capped);
  `ao doctor` gains a hooks-log check that warns on failures from the
  last 24h, and an ao-binary identity check.

Codex launch-surface canary:
- `ao doctor` gains codex-launch-flags: it runs probes exported by the
  codex adapter (built from the same flag builders as the real spawn
  argv) against the installed binary, warning when codex rejects the
  hook-trust bypass flag or AO's -c session-flag overrides.
- codex hook callback timeout drops 30s -> 5s so a hung daemon cannot
  stall the agent's turn.

Docs: the agent PRD callback section now describes the implemented flow
(derive state, POST /sessions/{id}/activity, hooks.log) instead of the
unbuilt SQLite/metadata merge, and notes that hook-derived metadata
persistence (codex resume) is still not implemented.

Frontend note: main's renderer test suite has 7 pre-existing failing
files and a vite-config typecheck error unrelated to this change;
workspace.test.ts (the only frontend file touched) passes 26/26.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Fable 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>

* test(store): restore TestSessionWorktreesRoundTrip lost in the re-landing port

The branch ported store_test.go wholesale from the closed redesign
branch, whose copy predates #165 — silently dropping the
session-worktrees round-trip test #165 added. Restore main's file and
re-apply only this branch's addition (TestSessionFirstSignalRoundTrip).
No other ported file lost main-side content (audited per-file against
main; the remaining deletions are this branch's intended refactors).

Co-Authored-By: Claude Fable 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>

* fix(status): only derive no_signal for harnesses that have a hook pipeline

Review finding: the no_signal downgrade had no harness-capability gate, but
first_signal_at can only ever be stamped by an `ao hooks` callback. Ten
spawnable harnesses (amp, aider, crush, grok, kimi, devin, auggie, continue,
vibe, pi) install no hooks at all, so every live session of theirs would have
flipped from idle to a permanent no_signal -> needs_you after the 90s grace.

The session service now takes a SignalCapable predicate; daemon wiring injects
activitydispatch.SupportsHarness (the deriver registry is the source of truth
for "this harness can signal"). Left nil, the service never claims no_signal.
A new dispatch test pins that every deriver token is a known harness name.

Also from the same review:
- lifecycle/manager.go and the 0010 migration claimed Codex's SessionStart
  reports idle as the first signal; both codex and claude-code derivers
  deliberately return no signal for session-start, so the comments now cite a
  real case (a lost "active" POST followed by a Stop hook landing idle).
- docs/agent/README.md documents the gate and the restore caveat: a restored
  session the user never prompts has nothing to signal, so it shows no_signal
  after the grace until a receipt-only session-start signal exists.
- 0010 migration uses DROP TRIGGER IF EXISTS per house style.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Fable 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>

---------

Co-authored-by: Claude Fable 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
2026-06-11 10:36:45 +05:30
..
agent fix(codex): reliable activity signals — session-flag hooks, trust bypass, no_signal watchdog (#170) 2026-06-11 10:36:45 +05:30
cli chore: add prettier config and CI auto-formatter (#166) 2026-06-10 09:09:17 +05:30
design chore: add prettier config and CI auto-formatter (#166) 2026-06-10 09:09:17 +05:30
README.md chore: add prettier config and CI auto-formatter (#166) 2026-06-10 09:09:17 +05:30
architecture.md refactor: move session status assembly to service (#62) (#67) 2026-06-01 23:31:21 +05:30
backend-code-structure.md docs: document backend code structure (#41) 2026-06-04 02:32:18 +05:30
stack.md chore: add prettier config and CI auto-formatter (#166) 2026-06-10 09:09:17 +05:30
status.md refactor: move session status assembly to service (#62) (#67) 2026-06-01 23:31:21 +05:30

README.md

agent-orchestrator rewrite docs

The agent-orchestrator is being rebuilt as a long-running Go backend daemon
(backend/) plus an Electron + TypeScript frontend (frontend/). The backend
supervises coding-agent sessions and exposes daemon control, project/session
state, terminal streaming, and CDC/event infrastructure.

Start with architecture.md for the current backend model and
cli/README.md for the CLI surface.

Reference docs

Doc What it covers
architecture.md Current backend model, package layout, status derivation, persistence/CDC, and load-bearing rules.
backend-code-structure.md Package ownership rules for the Go backend: domain, services, ports, adapters, storage, HTTP, CLI, and daemon wiring.
cli/README.md CLI commands and daemon control surface.
status.md Current implementation shape, build/test command, and next integration work.
stack.md Accepted library/runtime choices, pending stack decisions, and dependencies explicitly avoided for V1.

Mental model

Persist durable facts, derive display status:

  • session table: activity_state, is_terminated, identity, metadata
  • PR tables: PR/CI/review facts
  • derived read model: service.Session computes display status from session + PR facts