Service Health Check

Service Health Check Skill

Overview

This skill provides deterministic service health monitoring using the Discover-Check-Report pattern. It finds services, gathers health signals from multiple sources (process table, health files, port binding), and produces actionable reports identifying degraded or failed services.

Core principle: Health assessment is evidence-based. Never report a service healthy without verifying process status independently of health file content. Never assume a running process is functional — always cross-check against health files and port binding.

Reference Loading Table

Instructions

Phase 1: DISCOVER

Goal: Identify all services to check before running any health probes.

Step 1: Locate service definitions

Search for service configuration in this order:

1. services.json in project root
2. Docker/docker-compose files for service definitions
3. systemd unit files or process manager configs
4. User-provided service specification

Step 2: Build service manifest

For each service, establish:

## Service Manifest
| Service | Process Pattern | Health File | Port | Stale Threshold |
|---------|----------------|-------------|------|-----------------|
| api-server | gunicorn.*app:app | /tmp/api_health.json | 8000 | 300s |
| worker | celery.*worker | /tmp/worker_health.json | - | 300s |
| cache | redis-server | - | 6379 | - |

Validation constraints:

• Each process pattern must be specific enough to avoid false matches (e.g., "python" matches all Python processes—use full paths or arguments instead)
• Health file paths must be absolute
• Port numbers must be valid (1-65535)
• Pattern specificity matters: narrow patterns with full command paths, distinguishing arguments, or specific binary names

Step 3: Validate manifest

Confirm each entry passes the constraints above. If a pattern is too broad, use ps aux | grep to identify distinguishing arguments, then update the pattern.

Gate: Service manifest complete with at least one service. Proceed only when gate passes.

Phase 2: CHECK

Goal: Gather health signals for every service in the manifest. Always check process status independently of health file content—a running process and a healthy health file are separate signals.

Step 1: Check process status

For each service, run process check:

pgrep -f "<process_pattern>"

Record: running (true/false), PIDs, process count.

Rationale: Process existence is the primary signal. A missing process always means the service is DOWN. A running process alone is insufficient—the service may have crashed or failed to bind to its port.

Step 2: Parse health files (if configured)

Read and parse JSON health files. Evaluate:

• Does the file exist?
• Does it parse as valid JSON?
• How old is the timestamp (staleness)? Default stale threshold is 300 seconds.
• What status does the service self-report?
• What is the connection state?

Critical constraint: Never trust health file content alone. The file could be stale from before a process crash. Always verify:

1. Process is still running
2. Health file timestamp is fresh (within configured threshold)
3. Status field matches evidence (e.g., "error" requires restart)

Step 3: Probe ports (if configured)

Check if expected ports are listening:

ss -tlnp "sport = :<port>"

Rationale: Verify ports are actually bound. A process can start but fail to bind to its configured port—that is effectively a DOWN state, not HEALTHY.

Step 4: Evaluate health per service

Apply this decision tree (constraints embedded in logic):

1. Process not running → DOWN (definitive)
2. Process running + health file missing → WARNING (limited visibility, but process is alive)
3. Process running + health file stale (> threshold) → WARNING (file hasn't updated in configured time, suggests no activity or crash recovery in progress)
4. Process running + status=error → ERROR (restart recommended immediately)
5. Process running + disconnected > 30 minutes → WARNING (long disconnect suggests stuck state, restart recommended)
6. Process running + disconnected < 30 minutes → DEGRADED (allow reconnection window, monitor)
7. Process running + port not listening (when port is configured) → ERROR (process running but failed to bind port)
8. Process running + healthy → HEALTHY (all checks pass)
9. Process running + no health file configured → RUNNING (limited visibility, process verified only)

Gate: All services evaluated with evidence-based status. No status is determined without concrete signal (process check, health file, or port probe). Proceed only when gate passes.

Phase 3: REPORT

Goal: Produce structured, actionable health report with specific remediation commands.

Step 1: Generate summary

SERVICE HEALTH REPORT
=====================
Checked: N services
Healthy: X/N

RESULTS:
  service-name         [OK  ] HEALTHY     PID 12345, uptime 2d 4h
  background-worker    [WARN] WARNING     Health file stale (15 min)
  cache-service        [DOWN] DOWN        Process not found

RECOMMENDATIONS:
  background-worker: Restart recommended - health file not updated in 900s
  cache-service: Start service - process not running

SUGGESTED ACTIONS:
  systemctl restart background-worker
  systemctl start cache-service

Step 2: Set exit status

• All HEALTHY/RUNNING → exit 0
• Any WARNING/DEGRADED/ERROR/DOWN → exit 1

Step 3: Present to user

• Lead with the summary line (X/N healthy)
• Highlight any services needing action
• Provide copy-pasteable commands for remediation
• Never auto-restart without explicit user flag. Always report findings first, let user decide.

Gate: Report delivered with actionable recommendations for all non-healthy services.

Examples

Example 1: Routine Health Check

User says: "Are all services up?" Actions:

1. Locate services.json, build manifest (DISCOVER)
2. Check each process, parse health files, probe ports (CHECK)
3. Output structured report showing 3/3 healthy (REPORT) Result: Clean report, no action needed

Example 2: Stale Worker Detection

User says: "The background worker seems stuck" Actions:

1. Identify worker service from config (DISCOVER)
2. Find process running but health file 20 minutes stale (CHECK) — triggers WARNING decision in tree
3. Report WARNING with restart recommendation (REPORT) Result: Specific diagnosis with actionable command

Error Handling

Error: "No Service Configuration Found"

Cause: No services.json, docker-compose, or systemd units discovered Solution:

1. Ask user for service name and process pattern
2. Build minimal manifest from user input
3. Proceed with manual configuration

Error: "Process Pattern Matches Too Many PIDs"

Cause: Pattern too broad (e.g., "python" matches all Python processes) Solution:

1. Narrow pattern with full command path or arguments
2. Use ps aux | grep to identify distinguishing arguments
3. Update manifest with more specific pattern
4. Rationale: False positives hide real failures. Specificity is required to avoid misdiagnosis.

Error: "Health File Exists But Cannot Parse"

Cause: Malformed JSON, permissions issue, or file being written during read Solution:

1. Check file permissions with ls -la
2. Attempt raw read to inspect content
3. If mid-write, retry after 2-second delay
4. Report as WARNING with parse error details

References

Health File Format Reference

Services should write health files as:

{
    "timestamp": "ISO8601, updated every 30-60s",
    "status": "healthy|degraded|error",
    "connection": "connected|disconnected|reconnecting",
    "last_activity": "ISO8601 of last meaningful action",
    "running": true,
    "uptime_seconds": 12345,
    "metrics": {}
}

Key Constraints Summary