Zellij Detached Codex Launch Verification

When to use

Use when Hermes/botfiles pickup or launcher flows claim a Zellij session was started for a Codex task, but attaching shows only an idle shell, missing task metadata, or verification based only on zellij list-sessions.

Core lesson

A detached Zellij session existing is not sufficient evidence that Codex launched successfully. Verify a real visible pane and the Codex process/UI before treating the lane as active.

Steps

1. Inspect the ticket/session state

   • Check whether the Linear ticket actually contains repo-local evidence.
   • If not, use the default project root policy (currently ~/pro/personal_os for Arya ambiguous tickets).
   • Inspect the live session:
     • zellij list-sessions
     • zellij action query-tab-names --session <session>
     • zellij action dump-screen --session <session> -p <pane_id> -f

2. Check whether the launcher is over-crediting success

   • Look at the launcher script and verify whether it only:
     • creates a session, or
     • also creates a pane running Codex.
   • If verification only checks zellij list-sessions, that is insufficient.

3. Validate --dry-run honestly

   • Run:
     • start-zellij-session-for-task --project-root <root> --dry-run <ISSUE>
   • Confirm whether dry-run only prints the launch plan/script.
   • Do not attribute launch-time pane verification failures to --dry-run unless the tool truly performs launch under dry-run.

4. Fix detached launch behavior

   • Creating a detached session plus setting options --default-shell <bootstrap> may not produce a visible pane that can be inspected.
   • Preferred fix on this setup:
     1. create the detached session
     2. launch the bootstrap as a real pane command with:
        • ZELLIJ_SESSION_NAME=<session> zellij run -- <bootstrap_path>
   • This creates an inspectable pane like terminal_1 that actually runs Codex.

5. Strengthen verification

   • After launch, inspect the real pane (terminal_1 or returned pane) with dump-screen.
   • Require evidence such as:
     • OpenAI Codex
     • seeded task prompt like $start-new-task <ISSUE>
     • correct repo cwd visible in UI
   • Optionally verify process tree for the Codex child.
   • If no visible Codex evidence appears after retries, fail the launcher and do not claim activation.

6. Normalize ticket state instead of broadening supervision

   • If a real verified live Codex session exists for a ticket still in Todo, the cleaner approach is to move the ticket to In Progress.
   • Prefer keeping supervision cron scoped to normal active states rather than special-casing Todo live lanes.

Verification checklist

• zellij list-sessions shows the session
• zellij action list-panes (or equivalent session inspection) shows a real running pane
• dump-screen on the active pane shows Codex UI, not just a shell prompt
• task metadata/tracker context resolves if expected
• only then post activation markers or move ticket state

Pitfalls

• Existing stale session names can block honest relaunch; kill the stale session before retrying.
• dump-screen against the wrong pane can make a healthy launch look broken.
• Cron summaries may conflate dry-run and real-run output; re-run commands directly when in doubt.
• Do not treat a shell prompt in ~/pro/botfiles as evidence of a task lane for another repo.