status — the four words a human says to a fleet
The stance
A status is computed at read time, every time, and stored nowhere. A status written to a file
reads identically whether it is current or six hours old — which is why campaign refuses a stored
status (ADR-0113), why revive's manifest refuses one at any depth, and why nothing this skill
touches has a state: field.
The other three controls are not new capability. They are the order the existing machinery runs
in when a human says a word, plus the one thing no engine can supply: what the answer costs. A
pause that is not accompanied by what it fails to preserve is a promise the mechanism does not make.
Rigid skill. The bound, the channel order, the verdict vocabulary and the refusals are not judgment
calls.
What this owns, and what it must not restate
| The task |
Its owner |
Never re-derived here |
| Handing this session forward, once, with a structured brief |
handoff (/relay) |
The six-element bar, the frontmatter, the relay's refusals. Control 4 is that skill — this one routes to it and adds nothing |
| Restarting an absent fleet unattended from a not-before instant |
revive |
The manifest, the five preconditions, the cron shape. A timed resume writes not_before into that manifest |
| What is true of one delegated session right now |
successor-manager |
The health gate, the five verdicts, the ownership register |
| Launching, integrating, tearing down a worker |
successor |
The five phases. An absent worker is a finding here, never a relaunch |
| Whether to keep going at all |
endless |
Continuation doctrine |
| Whether a batch may close, and what re-arms |
campaign, gauntlet |
Landedness by content, the frontier |
One bounded cycle and its six outcomes, pause among them |
work-loop |
Its ledger and its vocabulary. work-loop's pause ends a cycle; this one stops a session acting. Neither writes to the other's record |
| What a mid-run interruption owes on return |
off-topic |
The checkpoint format. A pause that needs a checkpoint writes that one — there is no second format |
| What a session says to another session |
s2s |
The message contract. A pause request travels that channel and inherits its rule: a send reports on the send |
| Whether the daemon is even there |
fleet-health.sh |
Its exits. They are forwarded, never re-interpreted |
The gap none of them fills, and the only reason this is a skill: what the four words mean when a
human says them, in what order the machinery runs, and what the answer costs to read.
The four controls
| The human says |
Verb |
What runs |
What it costs |
| "status", "what's running" |
status |
status-report.sh — one line, ≤300 codepoints, computed now |
Detail is elided, severity-ordered; the counts never are |
| "pause", "hold everything" |
pause |
quiesce the reachable sessions; report the rest |
Nothing is preserved by contract — see below |
| "stop and wait an hour" |
resume-at |
checkpoint, stop cleanly, write not_before into revive's manifest |
The context window. What comes back reads committed state |
| "stop so I can start fresh" |
handoff |
handoff / /relay, unchanged |
Nothing — this is the control that preserves things, by writing them down first |
bash .claude/scripts/status-report.sh # the line
bash .claude/scripts/status-report.sh --json # the same, machine-readable and unbounded
The report
odin · daemon up · sessions 18 (5 live, 8 idle, 3 blocked, 2 absent) · tasks 29 · agents ? · …
Everything about it — what the 300 is measured over, why elision is severity-ordered, why unknown
is never 0, the exit codes — is report-contract.md. Three rules
are load-bearing enough to repeat here:
- Liveness is never read from the subject.
fleet-health.sh runs first, and a roster row is
believed only when that row's own socket exists. A wedged session reports running; a dead one
reports whatever the registry last knew, because the registry outlives the daemon (ADR-0072).
- A count that could not be obtained renders
?. An invented 0 reads as a finished fleet.
agents ? is the steady state — no channel enumerates a session's in-context subagents.
- An elision announces itself, and never drops the failing worker. Blocked and absent rows sort
ahead of live; the tail is what goes. If the counts alone will not fit, nothing is cut and the
report exits 5.
Pause, and what it does not preserve
SIGSTOP is not a pause, and this skill will not issue one. Measured on this host: through a
4m32s freeze every channel — the roster, fleet-health, both sockets — reported the session as
present and working while its whole process tree sat in state T; through a 14-minute freeze every
upstream connection dropped to zero and the supervisor killed and respawned the session, so what
came back was a new process with a new context window wearing the same id. Recorded as DEC-0115.
What a pause preserves, what it does not, which sessions it can reach, what happens to one that does
not answer, and why "in sync" means ordered rather than simultaneous:
pause-contract.md. The one-line version, which belongs in the
answer given to the user rather than in a footnote:
Quiesce stops the session acting and preserves nothing by contract. The context window survives by
luck. Everything durable must already be on disk before the pause is requested.
Common mistakes
| Mistake |
What goes wrong |
| Reporting a pause as done because the message was delivered |
A send reports on the send. A peer can refuse, and one did during the measurement |
Rendering an unobtainable count as 0 |
Reads as a finished fleet — the exact failure ADR-0072 exists over |
| Storing the report so it can be read later |
A stored status is indistinguishable from a current one. Re-run the command |
| Resuming eight sessions at once |
A launch burst; it has already left registered sessions with no task (harness:RM-0518) |
| Treating an orphan like a child |
There is no channel to it. unreachable is a verdict, not a failure to try harder |
| Shortening the report by cutting the tail |
Only safe because it is severity-ordered. Cutting an unordered line drops the failing worker |
1---2name: status3description: Use when a human addresses the fleet itself rather than the work — asking what is running, for a status report, to pause or halt everything, to stop and wait a while before resuming, or to stop so they can start a fresh session. Also on "what's running", "how's it going", "hold everything", "freeze the fleet", "pause the workers", "resume in an hour", "wait 20 minutes then continue", "stop so I can pick this up in a new session".4---56# status — the four words a human says to a fleet78## The stance910A status is **computed at read time, every time, and stored nowhere**. A status written to a file11reads identically whether it is current or six hours old — which is why `campaign` refuses a stored12status (ADR-0113), why `revive`'s manifest refuses one at any depth, and why nothing this skill13touches has a `state:` field.1415The other three controls are not new capability. They are the **order the existing machinery runs16in** when a human says a word, plus the one thing no engine can supply: what the answer costs. A17pause that is not accompanied by what it fails to preserve is a promise the mechanism does not make.1819Rigid skill. The bound, the channel order, the verdict vocabulary and the refusals are not judgment20calls.2122## What this owns, and what it must not restate2324| The task | Its owner | Never re-derived here |25|---|---|---|26| Handing this session forward, once, with a structured brief | `handoff` (`/relay`) | The six-element bar, the frontmatter, the relay's refusals. Control 4 **is** that skill — this one routes to it and adds nothing |27| Restarting an absent fleet unattended from a not-before instant | `revive` | The manifest, the five preconditions, the cron shape. A timed resume writes `not_before` into *that* manifest |28| What is true of one delegated session right now | `successor-manager` | The health gate, the five verdicts, the ownership register |29| Launching, integrating, tearing down a worker | `successor` | The five phases. An absent worker is a finding here, never a relaunch |30| Whether to keep going at all | `endless` | Continuation doctrine |31| Whether a batch may close, and what re-arms | `campaign`, `gauntlet` | Landedness by content, the frontier |32| One bounded cycle and its six outcomes, `pause` among them | `work-loop` | Its ledger and its vocabulary. **`work-loop`'s `pause` ends a cycle; this one stops a session acting.** Neither writes to the other's record |33| What a mid-run interruption owes on return | `off-topic` | The checkpoint format. A pause that needs a checkpoint writes **that** one — there is no second format |34| What a session says to another session | `s2s` | The message contract. A pause request travels that channel and inherits its rule: a send reports on the send |35| Whether the daemon is even there | `fleet-health.sh` | Its exits. They are forwarded, never re-interpreted |3637The gap none of them fills, and the only reason this is a skill: **what the four words mean when a38human says them, in what order the machinery runs, and what the answer costs to read.**3940## The four controls4142| The human says | Verb | What runs | What it costs |43|---|---|---|---|44| "status", "what's running" | `status` | `status-report.sh` — one line, ≤300 codepoints, computed now | Detail is elided, severity-ordered; the counts never are |45| "pause", "hold everything" | `pause` | quiesce the reachable sessions; report the rest | Nothing is preserved by contract — see below |46| "stop and wait an hour" | `resume-at` | checkpoint, stop cleanly, write `not_before` into `revive`'s manifest | The context window. What comes back reads committed state |47| "stop so I can start fresh" | `handoff` | `handoff` / `/relay`, unchanged | Nothing — this is the control that preserves things, by writing them down first |4849```sh50bash .claude/scripts/status-report.sh # the line51bash .claude/scripts/status-report.sh --json # the same, machine-readable and unbounded52```5354## The report5556`odin · daemon up · sessions 18 (5 live, 8 idle, 3 blocked, 2 absent) · tasks 29 · agents ? · …`5758Everything about it — what the 300 is measured over, why elision is severity-ordered, why `unknown`59is never `0`, the exit codes — is [report-contract.md](references/report-contract.md). Three rules60are load-bearing enough to repeat here:61621. **Liveness is never read from the subject.** `fleet-health.sh` runs first, and a roster row is63 believed only when that row's *own* socket exists. A wedged session reports `running`; a dead one64 reports whatever the registry last knew, because the registry outlives the daemon (ADR-0072).652. **A count that could not be obtained renders `?`.** An invented `0` reads as a finished fleet.66 `agents ?` is the steady state — no channel enumerates a session's in-context subagents.673. **An elision announces itself, and never drops the failing worker.** Blocked and absent rows sort68 ahead of live; the tail is what goes. If the counts alone will not fit, nothing is cut and the69 report exits 5.7071## Pause, and what it does not preserve7273**`SIGSTOP` is not a pause, and this skill will not issue one.** Measured on this host: through a744m32s freeze every channel — the roster, `fleet-health`, both sockets — reported the session as75present and working while its whole process tree sat in state `T`; through a 14-minute freeze every76upstream connection dropped to zero and the supervisor **killed and respawned the session**, so what77came back was a new process with a new context window wearing the same id. Recorded as **DEC-0115**.7879What a pause preserves, what it does not, which sessions it can reach, what happens to one that does80not answer, and why "in sync" means ordered rather than simultaneous:81[pause-contract.md](references/pause-contract.md). The one-line version, which belongs in the82answer given to the user rather than in a footnote:8384> Quiesce stops the session acting and preserves nothing by contract. The context window survives by85> luck. Everything durable must already be on disk before the pause is requested.8687## Common mistakes8889| Mistake | What goes wrong |90|---|---|91| Reporting a pause as done because the message was delivered | A send reports on the send. A peer can refuse, and one did during the measurement |92| Rendering an unobtainable count as `0` | Reads as a finished fleet — the exact failure ADR-0072 exists over |93| Storing the report so it can be read later | A stored status is indistinguishable from a current one. Re-run the command |94| Resuming eight sessions at once | A launch burst; it has already left registered sessions with no task (harness:RM-0518) |95| Treating an orphan like a child | There is no channel to it. `unreachable` is a verdict, not a failure to try harder |96| Shortening the report by cutting the tail | Only safe *because* it is severity-ordered. Cutting an unordered line drops the failing worker |
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