# Orchid Operator > Operate and supervise an orchid/divybot agent swarm — open issues as work, watch workers over herdr, relay-free PR supervision, governor pacing, credential health, deploy. Use when asked to check the swarm, open work, why a worker is stuck, scale/pause a target, deploy the coordinator, or fix a fleet-wide auth failure. - Skill: `denoland/orchid-operator` (Agent Skill, multi-file: 5 files) - Install (CLI): `npx skillmds@latest add denoland/orchid-operator` - Raw SKILL.md: https://api.skillmd.com/api/skills/denoland/orchid-operator/raw - Safety review: pending - Works with: Claude Code, Claude.ai, OpenAI Codex - Category: DevOps & Infra - Author: denoland (https://skillmd.com/u/denoland) - Updated: 2026-09-17 - Page: https://skillmd.com/skills/denoland/orchid-operator --- # Orchid Operator You are the human-in-the-loop operator of an **orchid** swarm. The coordinator is `divybot` — one headless Go process that turns labelled GitHub issues into merged pull requests by driving agent harnesses (`claude` / `codex`) on a pool of hosts through a **herdr** fabric over SSH. There is no dashboard, no web UI, no tmux: herdr is the runtime, the perception layer, and the UI (`herdr --remote `). Your job: keep the swarm fed and healthy. Open issues so workers pick them up, watch workers when something looks wrong, supervise/merge PRs, pace the swarm against quota, and fix the failure classes below before they cascade. ## Mental model — how divybot thinks divybot runs one loop on `poll_interval` (default 30s). Each tick: feed (mirror bot-assigned upstream issues into the inbox) → sweep-merge green bot PRs → poll issues → teardown jobs whose issue closed → fleet-status every host → respawn vanished agents → admit new work in priority order against per-account governor budget. Internalize these invariants — they explain almost every behaviour you'll see: - **One issue = one worker.** divybot does NOT auto-fan-out. To get N parallel workers on a big effort, file N issues (one per subsystem/slice). A single fat issue gets a single agent. - **Inbox issue is the unit of life.** A worker lives as long as its inbox issue is open. Close the inbox issue to retire a worker; closing only the work-repo PR does nothing. Tearing down happens when the issue is gone. - **Never-strand guard.** If a `gh` issue list errors, divybot skips teardown that tick — a flaky poll must never read as "all closed" and wipe the swarm. - **Respawn is debounced.** A job whose host is up but whose agent vanished is respawned only after several consecutive status misses, so one herdr status flicker can't mass-respawn a host. - **Credentials are central.** The coordinator host holds the only real creds and pushes them to every host on spawn and every ~20 min. Most "the fleet died" incidents are a credential problem at the coordinator, not the hosts. - **Agents pace independently.** claude and codex each meter against their own real quota; a hot claude window does not throttle codex. Work spills claude→codex when claude is capped (target `agents: ["claude","codex"]`). ## Instance facts (fill in for your swarm) ``` Coordinator SSH: @ # holds canonical creds; runs divybot Binary: /usr/local/bin/divybot Config: /divybot.json # see cmd/divybot/divybot.example.json State: # plain JSON, e.g. /root/divybot/state.json Service unit: orchid.service # systemd; confirm with `systemctl list-units | grep -i orch` Logs: journalctl -u orchid Inbox repo: # "inbox" in config Hosts: herdr ≥ 0.7.0, agent user (orchid@vm / divy@mac), on the tailnet ``` The hosts, targets (label→repo→agent), and governor knobs all live in the config JSON. Read it first — it is the ground truth for what's wired up. ## Health check (start here for "how's the swarm?") ```bash ssh "systemctl status orchid --no-pager && journalctl -u orchid -n 40 --no-pager" # coordinator's own view of jobs (issue → host → agent → branch → PR): ssh "cat " | python3 -m json.tool # per-host live agents, straight from herdr (JSON): ssh "herdr agent list" ``` Cross-check: every open inbox issue should map to a live agent (state file) and a herdr agent on its host. Gaps = stranded or dead workers — see Troubleshooting. ## Watch a worker (when one looks stuck) herdr's native `agent_status` is the truth (`idle|working|blocked|done|unknown`) — agent-agnostic, works for claude and codex. Don't scrape footers. ```bash ssh "herdr agent get " # status + cwd + pane ssh "herdr pane capture -n 60" # read recent output herdr --remote # attach interactively to drive/inspect ``` Read `blocked` as "needs a human" (divybot escalates these via ntfy). `idle`/`done` with no PR is a strand — divybot re-injects the goal automatically; if it persists, the agent is wedged (respawn it by closing+reopening the issue, or close the workspace and let the next tick respawn). ## Open work (the main lever) ```bash gh issue create --repo --label --title "..." --body "..." ``` The label must match a configured target. Heuristics from experience: - **Scope the body like a goal, not a ticket.** State the end condition concretely ("port the whole X API surface and land it in one PR", "make baseline cell N green"). Vague issues yield vague PRs. Per-target `prompt_hint` already shapes scope — don't fight it. - **Parallelism = more issues.** For a wide effort, file one issue per subsystem so each gets its own worker. Don't expect one issue to fan out. - **Jump the queue** with `priority: N` on the target (higher admits first) so a small high-value target isn't starved behind a big backlog. ## Supervise & merge divybot forwards only *new* reviews, CI failures, and merge conflicts into the worker's pane (via `herdr agent send`) — you don't relay by hand. On targets with `automerge: true` it squash-merges a green, mergeable, non-draft PR itself, then either retires the worker or lets it continue/fan-out the rest. Your job is to review PRs you care about and decide automerge per target. For a partial PR that merged, divybot files sibling issues for the remainder — expect follow-up workers. ## Pace the swarm (governor) The governor caps concurrent agents per account against the real usage meter, hard-pausing new work at `weekly_ceiling_pct` (default 92). To run hotter or cooler, edit `governor` in the config and restart: - `max_active` — ceiling on the adaptive per-account cap (raise to scale up). - `weekly_ceiling_pct` / `slack_pct` — how close to the weekly cap you'll push. - Per-host `capacity` — hard slot cap per box. Check pacing in the logs (governor decisions are logged each tick). If workers aren't spawning despite open issues, suspect: governor at ceiling, no host with the required `need_cap`, or every account out of budget this tick. ## Tune targets without code All live in the config `targets[]`, restart to apply: - `disabled: true` — pause NEW spawns for a target; live jobs keep running and issues are still polled (so they aren't torn down). Use to halt a target without losing in-flight work. - `agents: ["claude","codex"]` — overflow order; spills to codex when claude caps. - `automerge: true` — let divybot merge green bot PRs (only where it has rights and unreviewed bot merges are acceptable). - `priority`, `prompt_hint`, `need_cap` — admission order, scope guidance, host gating. ## Add / remove a host No "join". Edit `hosts[]` in the config and restart. A host is usable iff it's on the tailnet and its herdr answers. Requirements: herdr ≥ 0.7.0 with the claude/codex integrations installed (`herdr integration install claude` / `codex`), an unprivileged agent user (bare claude refuses `--dangerously-skip-permissions` as root), and the capabilities the target's `need_cap` demands. Pin codex to residential hosts via `"agents": ["claude"]` on datacenter boxes — codex's oauth TUI gets Cloudflare-challenged from datacenter IPs. ## Deploy a new coordinator binary ```bash CGO_ENABLED=0 GOOS=linux GOARCH=amd64 go build -o divybot-linux ./cmd/divybot scp divybot-linux :/tmp/divybot && rm divybot-linux ssh "sudo install -m0755 /tmp/divybot /usr/local/bin/divybot && sudo systemctl restart orchid && sudo systemctl status orchid --no-pager" ``` Restarting sheds nothing — live workers keep running in their herdr workspaces and divybot re-adopts them by label on its next tick. Use systemctl, **never `pkill`** (its cmdline matches herdr/agent processes and takes the whole host down). ## Troubleshooting (the recurring failure classes) - **Whole fleet 401 / "Invalid bearer" / "not trusted".** The coordinator's Max oauth *refresh* token died (often after a local re-login orphaned it). Fix at the coordinator, not the hosts: copy fresh creds up and let divybot re-push. ```bash # from a machine that's logged in (e.g. your mac keychain): security find-generic-password -s "Claude Code-credentials" -w # macOS # write that JSON to the coordinator's ~/.claude/.credentials.json, then: ssh "sudo systemctl restart orchid" ``` Then close/respawn the workers that died looping on 401. - **Workers not spawning, issues open.** Governor at ceiling (check logs), no host with `need_cap`, account out of budget, or target `disabled`. Confirm with the state file + `herdr agent list` per host. - **Agent stranded idle/done, no PR.** divybot re-injects the goal; if wedged, close the herdr workspace (`herdr workspace close `) and let the next tick respawn, or close+reopen the inbox issue. - **Green PR sitting unmerged.** Only happens off-automerge or when no live job tracks the branch; the per-tick sweep merges orphan green bot PRs on automerge targets. If it's not an automerge target, merge it yourself. - **Private work-repo clone fails on a host.** The agent user needs a working git credential helper / gh token for private repos — verify on the host. ## Shared memory The swarm shares a git-backed `memory/` subtree on the inbox repo; each host clones it and the agent's `autoMemoryDirectory` points there, so workers read the union and write locally (merge=union, no clobber). When you learn a durable operational fact (a build incantation, a host quirk, a maintainer preference), it belongs in memory so the swarm stops re-deriving it. ## Cadence Keep a light recurring health check (e.g. hourly): coordinator service up, every open issue has a live agent, governor not stuck at ceiling, no host dark. Escalate `blocked` agents; restart a dead coordinator; resync creds on a fleet-wide 401.