Pueue Job Orchestration

Pueue Job Orchestration

Universal CLI telemetry layer and job management — every command routed through pueue gets precise timing, exit code capture, full stdout/stderr logs, environment snapshots, and callback-on-completion.

Self-Evolving Skill: This skill improves through use. If instructions are wrong, parameters drifted, or a workaround was needed — fix this file immediately, don't defer. Only update for real, reproducible issues.

Overview

Pueue is a Rust CLI tool for managing shell command queues. It provides:

• Daemon persistence - Survives SSH disconnects, crashes, reboots
• Disk-backed queue - Auto-resumes after any failure
• Group-based parallelism - Control concurrent jobs per group
• Easy failure recovery - Restart failed jobs with one command
• Full telemetry - Timing, exit codes, stdout/stderr logs, env snapshots per task

When to Route Through Pueue

When to Use This Skill

Use this skill when the user mentions:

Quick Reference

Check Status

# Local
pueue status

# Remote (BigBlack)
ssh bigblack "~/.local/bin/pueue status"

Queue a Job

# Local (with working directory)
pueue add -w ~/project -- python long_running_script.py

# Local (simple)
pueue add -- python long_running_script.py

# Remote (BigBlack)
ssh bigblack "~/.local/bin/pueue add -w ~/project -- uv run python script.py"

# With group (for parallelism control)
pueue add --group p1 --label "BTCUSDT@1000" -w ~/project -- python populate.py --symbol BTCUSDT

Monitor Jobs

pueue follow <id>         # Watch job output in real-time
pueue log <id>            # View completed job output
pueue log <id> --full     # Full output (not truncated)

Manage Jobs

pueue restart <id>         # ⚠ Creates NEW task (see warning below)
pueue restart --in-place <id>  # Restarts task in-place (no new ID)
pueue restart --all-failed # ⚠ Restarts ALL failed across ALL groups
pueue kill <id>            # Kill running job
pueue clean                # Remove completed jobs from list
pueue reset                # Clear all jobs (use with caution)

CRITICAL WARNING — pueue restart semantics:

pueue restart <id> does NOT restart the task in-place. It creates a brand new task with a new ID, copying the command from the original. The original stays as Done/Failed. This causes exponential task growth when used in loops or by autonomous agents. In a 2026-03-04 incident, agents calling pueue restart on failed tasks grew 60 jobs to ~12,800.

• Use --in-place if you truly need to restart: pueue restart --in-place <id>
• Verify before restart: Read pueue log <id> to check if the failure is persistent (missing data, bad args) — retrying will never help
• Never use --all-failed without --group filter — it restarts every failed task across ALL groups

Host Configuration

Core Workflows

1. Queue Single Remote Job

# Step 1: Verify daemon is running
ssh bigblack "~/.local/bin/pueue status"

# Step 2: Queue the job
ssh bigblack "~/.local/bin/pueue add --label 'my-job' -- cd ~/project && uv run python script.py"

# Step 3: Monitor progress
ssh bigblack "~/.local/bin/pueue follow <id>"

2. Batch Job Submission (Multiple Symbols)

For rangebar cache population or similar batch operations:

# Use the pueue-populate.sh script
ssh bigblack "cd ~/rangebar-py && ./scripts/pueue-populate.sh setup"   # One-time
ssh bigblack "cd ~/rangebar-py && ./scripts/pueue-populate.sh phase1"  # Queue Phase 1
ssh bigblack "cd ~/rangebar-py && ./scripts/pueue-populate.sh status"  # Check progress

3. Configure Parallelism Groups

# Create groups with different parallelism limits
pueue group add fast      # Create 'fast' group
pueue parallel 4 --group fast  # Allow 4 parallel jobs

pueue group add slow
pueue parallel 1 --group slow  # Sequential execution

# Queue jobs to specific groups
pueue add --group fast -- echo "fast job"
pueue add --group slow -- echo "slow job"

4. Handle Failed Jobs

# Check what failed
pueue status | grep Failed

# View error output FIRST (distinguish transient vs persistent)
pueue log <id>

# Restart specific job IN-PLACE (no new task created)
pueue restart --in-place <id>

# ⚠ NEVER blindly restart all failed — classify failures first
# pueue restart --all-failed  # DANGEROUS: no group filter, creates duplicates

Failure classification before restart: Exit code 1 (app error) may be persistent (missing data, bad args — will never succeed). Exit code 137 (OOM) or 143 (SIGTERM) may be transient. Always read pueue log before restarting.

Troubleshooting

Priority Scheduling (--priority)

Higher priority number = runs first when a queue slot opens:

# Urgent validation (runs before queued lower-priority jobs)
pueue add --priority 10 -- python validate_critical.py

# Normal compute (default priority is 0)
pueue add -- python train_model.py

# Low-priority background task
pueue add --priority -5 -- python cleanup_logs.py

Priority only affects queued jobs waiting for an open slot. Running jobs are not preempted.

Per-Task Environment Override (pueue env)

Inject or override environment variables on stashed or queued tasks:

# Create a stashed job
JOB_ID=$(pueue add --stashed --print-task-id -- python train.py)

# Set environment variables (NOTE: separate args, NOT KEY=VALUE)
pueue env set "$JOB_ID" BATCH_SIZE 64
pueue env set "$JOB_ID" LEARNING_RATE 0.001

# Enqueue when ready
pueue enqueue "$JOB_ID"

Syntax: pueue env set <id> KEY VALUE -- the key and value are separate positional arguments.

Constraint: Only works on stashed/queued tasks. Cannot modify environment of running tasks.

Relationship to mise.toml [env]: mise [env] remains the SSoT for default environment. Use pueue env set only for one-off overrides (e.g., hyperparameter sweeps) without modifying config files.

Blocking Wait (pueue wait)

Block until tasks complete -- simpler than polling loops for scripts:

# Wait for specific task
pueue wait 42

# Wait for all tasks in a group
pueue wait --group mygroup

# Wait for ALL tasks across all groups
pueue wait --all

# Wait quietly (no progress output)
pueue wait 42 --quiet

# Wait for tasks to reach a specific status
pueue wait --status queued

Script Integration Pattern

# Queue -> wait -> process results
TASK_ID=$(pueue add --print-task-id -- python etl_pipeline.py)
pueue wait "$TASK_ID" --quiet
EXIT_CODE=$(pueue status --json | jq -r ".tasks[\"$TASK_ID\"].status.Done.result" 2>/dev/null)
if [ "$EXIT_CODE" = "Success" ]; then
    echo "Pipeline succeeded"
    pueue log "$TASK_ID" --full
else
    echo "Pipeline failed"
    pueue log "$TASK_ID" --full >&2
fi

Companion CLI Tools (bigblack)

Four lightweight CLI tools complement pueue for monitoring and notifications. All installed on bigblack at /usr/local/bin/ (noti, mprocs) or via apt (ntfy, task-spooler).

noti — Wrap Any Command with Telegram Notification

Best for one-off "notify me when this finishes" workflows. Native Telegram support.

# Wrap any command — sends Telegram when it finishes
noti -g mise run kintsugi:catchup

# With execution time in message
noti -g -e python long_script.py

# Custom title/message
noti -g -t "Deploy done" -m "bigblack updated" mise run deploy:bigblack

Config: ~/.config/noti/noti.yaml + env vars NOTI_TELEGRAM_TOKEN, NOTI_TELEGRAM_CHAT_ID, NOTI_DEFAULT=telegram in ~/.bashrc.

ntfy — Push Notifications from Scripts/Callbacks

Best for programmatic notifications from scripts, pueue callbacks, or curl one-liners.

# One-liner from any script
ntfy pub --title "Backfill done" odb-alerts "BTCUSDT@500 complete"

# With priority and tags
ntfy pub --priority high --tags "warning" odb-alerts "Job failed"

# curl variant (works anywhere, no binary needed)
curl -d "Backup finished" ntfy.sh/my-topic

# Subscribe to topic (poll mode)
ntfy sub --poll odb-alerts

Pueue callback integration — add to ~/.config/pueue/pueue.yml:

callback: 'ntfy pub --title "pueue: {{label}}" --tags "{{status}}" odb-alerts "Task #{{id}} {{status}} ({{command}})"'

mprocs — Multi-Process TUI

Best for interactive SSH sessions watching multiple processes side-by-side.

# Watch multiple pueue jobs in split panes
mprocs "pueue follow 3" "pueue follow 7" "pueue follow 8"

# Monitor services
mprocs "journalctl -fu opendeviationbar-sidecar" "journalctl -fu opendeviationbar-kintsugi"

Requires interactive TTY (SSH directly, not via scripts).

task-spooler (tsp) — Simplest Job Queue

Best for quick ad-hoc sequential/parallel tasks without pueue group setup.

# Queue tasks (default: 1 parallel)
tsp python train.py
tsp python validate.py

# Set parallel slots
tsp -S 3

# List queue
tsp -l

# View job output
tsp -c 0

# Combine with noti
tsp bash -c 'python train.py && noti -g -m "training done"'

Tool Selection Guide

Need to...
├── Get notified when a command finishes? → noti -g <command>
├── Send notification from a script/callback? → ntfy pub topic "msg"
├── Watch multiple logs/processes live? → mprocs "cmd1" "cmd2"
├── Quick sequential queue (no groups needed)? → tsp <command>
└── Persistent queue with groups, priorities? → pueue add <command>

Deep-Dive References

Pueue vs Temporal: When to Use Which

For structured, repeatable workflows needing durability and dedup, consider Temporal (pip install temporalio, brew install temporal):

Recommendation: Keep pueue for ad-hoc work. Migrate structured pipelines to Temporal when dedup and retry policies matter. See devops-tools:distributed-job-safety for invariants that apply to both.

Related

• Hook: itp-hooks/posttooluse-reminder.ts - Reminds to use Pueue for detected long-running commands
• Reference: Pueue GitHub
• Companion tools: noti (command wrapper → Telegram), ntfy (pub-sub notifications), mprocs (multi-process TUI), task-spooler (minimal job queue)
• SOTA Alternative: Temporal — durable workflow orchestration with built-in dedup, retry, visibility
• Issue: rangebar-py#77 - Original implementation
• Issue: rangebar-py#88 - Production deployment lessons

Post-Execution Reflection

After this skill completes, check before closing:

1. Did the command succeed? — If not, fix the instruction or error table that caused the failure.
2. Did parameters or output change? — If the underlying tool's interface drifted, update Usage examples and Parameters table to match.
3. Was a workaround needed? — If you had to improvise (different flags, extra steps), update this SKILL.md so the next invocation doesn't need the same workaround.

Only update if the issue is real and reproducible — not speculative.

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