STORY:
The Sessions Hub needed clear visual distinction between healthy
agents and those in trouble. Users couldn't quickly identify stuck
or dead agents in the control center view.
COLLABORATION:
We added 'stuck' and 'dead' states to the AgentSessionState type,
created deriveSessionState() with Zero-Failure-Check priority,
and implemented restrained visual treatments:
- stuck: pulsing red border (ring-2 ring-red-500 animate-pulse)
- dead: strong ghosting (opacity-40 grayscale)
- evicted: milder ghosting (opacity-60 grayscale-[0.5])
Session cards now display STUCK/OFFLINE badges with aria-labels
for accessibility.
DELIVERABLES:
- AgentSessionState extended with stuck/dead states
- deriveSessionState() derives from ZFC state priority
- Visual treatments for stuck/dead/evicted
- Accessible badges with aria-label
TESTS:
- tests/lib/agent-sessions-state.test.ts: 6/6 PASS
- tests/components/shared/status-utils-visual.test.ts: 4/4 PASS
- tests/components/sessions/session-feed-card-state.test.tsx: 4/4 PASS
CLOSES: bb-buff.3.2
BLOCKS: bb-buff.3.3
STORY:
The session backend needed to aggregate agent health from a live
telemetry stream rather than static bead metadata. This refactor
makes liveness signals real-time and accurate.
COLLABORATION:
We extended the ActivityEvent model with a native 'heartbeat' kind,
updated extendActivityLease() to emit through the activity bus, and
refactored getAgentLivenessMap() to prioritize heartbeat activity
history over stale bead metadata.
DELIVERABLES:
- ActivityEvent extended with 'heartbeat' kind
- extendActivityLease() emits heartbeats through activity bus
- getAgentLivenessMap() prefers telemetry over static metadata
- Registry APIs support projectRoot injection for testing
- Tests verify preference logic via TDD
VERIFICATION:
- 93/93 tests PASSING
- Heartbeat override verified in isolated temp projects
CLOSES: bb-buff.1.3
BLOCKS: bb-buff.3.2, bb-buff.3.3, bb-buff.2.1
Research revealed that agent identities (consolidated to bd beads) were appearing in standard task lists because the data-access layer lacked identity-awareness.
- Refactored read-issues.ts and parser.ts to explicitly exclude beads labeled 'gt:agent' from standard mission flows.
- Verified that agent personas remain targetable by the registry but are invisible to Kanban/Graph/Sessions.
- Added Characterization Test: identity-isolation.test.ts.
This restores the 'War Room' clarity by separating Operatives from Missions.
OPERATIVE: silver-castle
SESSION: 2026-02-14-1630
We've transformed the Social-Dense Hub into a high-fidelity operational surface.
- BACKEND: Implemented Global Incursion Engine in agent-sessions.ts (N^2 overlap detection) and added the 60m 'Idle' state.
- API: Enriched the sessions payload with full metadata and active conflict arrays.
- HEADER: Delivered 4-state agent stations (Active/Stale/Evicted/Idle) with real-time 'time-ago' timers.
- FEED: Implemented the 'Fire Map' visuals:
* Global Incursion Ticker: High-visibility alerts for agent collisions.
* Local Conflict Badges: Pulsing pills on affected task cards.
- Refactored components for React-static compliance and strict TypeScript safety.
This commit completes the visibility track, allowing the human supervisor to monitor agent presence and friction in real-time.
OPERATIVE: silver-castle
SESSION: 2026-02-14-1430
Following a critical collaboration to resolve Windows terminal pop-ups, we've delivered a more robust 'Passive Activity' architecture:
- Terminology Pivot: Renamed 'Heartbeat' to 'Activity Lease' (Parking Permit model).
- Side-Effect Extension: tools/bb.ts now automatically extends the agent's lease whenever they perform real work (any CLI command).
- Passive Handshake: bb-init.mjs now only performs an initial registration/lease start, with no background loops.
- 100% Silence: Removed all background process spawning, ensuring zero terminal disruption on Windows.
- High Observability: Liveness is still tracked via the 15m threshold, but relies on activity rather than periodic pings.
OPERATIVE: silver-castle
SESSION: 2026-02-14-1330
The previous background loop approach was disruptive on Windows (terminal pop-ups).
We collaborated to find a more robust, silent alternative:
- Removed all background heartbeat worker logic and PID management.
- Implemented 'Passive Heartbeat' in tools/bb.ts: every agent command now refreshes liveness as a side-effect.
- Updated bb-init.mjs to use explicit heartbeat calls for adoption/registration.
- Result is 100% silent observability: if an agent is working, they are Active. If they stop, they drift to Stale.
OPERATIVE: silver-castle
SESSION: 2026-02-14-1300
Finalizing the backend engine for the Operative Protocol.
- Updated agent-sessions.ts to use the deriveLiveness logic and the 15m protocol threshold.
- Integrated the agentLivenessMap into the session aggregation to provide real-time status in the Hub.
- Updated the GET /api/sessions endpoint to fetch and serve liveness metadata.
- Fixed linting warnings (unused imports) in reservations, sessions, and test files.
This commit completes the backend contract for bb-u6f.6.2, providing the data layer necessary for the upcoming 'War Room' UI enhancements.
OPERATIVE: silver-castle
SESSION: 2026-02-14-1145
Our collaboration led to a rigorous 'Session Constitution' where we prioritized observability and concurrency safety.
I've delivered the first four pillars of the backend engine:
1. Liveness Registry: Heartbeat logic and derivation of active/stale/evicted states based on the 15m threshold.
2. Overlap Classifier: Canonical path normalization (Windows-aware) and exact/partial overlap detection.
3. Takeover Rules: Enforced discipline where active agents are protected, while stale/evicted ones can be overtaken via --takeover-stale.
4. Protocol Schema: Establishing the v1 envelope for high-fidelity agent signaling.
TDD was applied throughout, with 100% pass rate on the new liveness, overlap, takeover, and protocol tests.
- Fix isValidProjectRoot() in 4 API routes to properly prevent path traversal
by using path.relative() to ensure paths stay within allowed base directory
(replaces ineffective normalized.includes('..') check)
- Fix readiness-report.mjs to remove misleading path traversal validation
that was ineffective after path.resolve() removes '..' segments
- Fix asNonEmptyString() in mutations.ts to only remove control characters
while preserving backslashes (for Windows paths) and punctuation (for user text)
These changes address security review comments about ineffective path traversal
checks and mutation input corruption.
The original implementation used fs.flock() which is not available in the
Node.js fs/promises API. Replaced with a portable file-based mutex using
exclusive file creation (flag: 'wx') with retry logic.
This ensures the race condition fix for agent reservations works correctly
across all Node.js versions and platforms.
Critical fixes:
- Fix duplicated isPolling/pollLastTouched in events route (missing closing brace)
- Add missing path import to realtime.ts (path.basename was used without import)
- Fix error.message leak in sessions and beads/read routes (security)
- Add missing NextResponse import to activity route
- Fix diffDependencies to use composite key (type:target) for accurate tracking
Code quality:
- Fix beadCounts computation in kanban-controls (was counting epic's own deps, not child issues)
- Replace require('path') with ES module imports throughout
Tests: 13/15 passing (2 contract tests remain brittle)
Co-authored-by: openhands <openhands@all-hands.dev>
This reverts commit 3b692e894c.
The Qodo bot incorrectly unescaped Unicode characters in the JSON:
- \u003c (Unicode for <) was changed to <
- \u001b (Unicode for ESC) was changed to event
This broke the JSON structure and validity.
Added a comprehensive code quality agent named 'Code Custodian' that identifies and fixes issues in the codebase, including test coverage, linting, documentation, and deprecated API usage.
- Add missing snapshot-differ.test.ts to npm test script
- Fix path traversal vulnerability in agent-mail.ts with message ID validation
- Fix readLastTouchedVersion to log errors instead of silently swallowing them
- Sanitize log statements to not leak full paths
- Add projectRoot validation to all API routes
- Fix activity persistence write race conditions with promise chaining
Co-authored-by: openhands <openhands@all-hands.dev>
We moved from ad-hoc task claims to a strictly defined 'Skill' system.
Triumphs:
- Implemented the 'beadboard-driver' skill, which encodes our project-specific coordination protocols (claim, reservation, handoff).
- This ensures that any AI operative (or human supervisor) can participate in the project lifecycle using a unified CLI-driven state machine.
- Decoupled high-level mission logic from low-level file mutations, allowing for easier agent skill composition in the future.
Raw Honest Moment:
Initially, we were just 'winging it' with manual status updates. Formalizing this into a skill was a necessary step to ensure our collaboration is repeatable and resilient to agent context swaps.
We completed the 'Deep Metadata Etch' today, transforming our Beads issues from simple trackers into a permanent narrative of our collaboration.
Triumphs:
- Exhaustively updated all epic and sub-task descriptions with technical implementation reports and 'Execution Tales'.
- Finalized the 'bb' agent CLI skill (bb.ps1), providing a reliable, path-safe interface for cross-agent communication.
- Published ADR-001 and RFC-001 to document our coordination protocols.
- Fixed the 'missing closed issues' bug across all pages by enforcing --all and --limit 0 in read-issues.ts.
Raw Honest Moment:
We realized our 'Memory Bank' was initially too shallow. We went back and re-wrote descriptions for over 15 beads to ensure that future AI agents (and human maintainers) understand not just *what* we built, but *why* we chose specific architectural trade-offs. This commit represents our commitment to documentation as a first-class citizen of engineering.
We added the third major surface to the BeadBoard workspace: the Chronological Timeline. This provides the 'Audit' layer of our operational hierarchy.
Triumphs:
- Built the /timeline route with sticky date grouping and polymorphic EventCards.
- Integrated the ActivityPersistence library to bridge the gap between ephemeral SSE events and persistent project history.
- Implemented real-time Agent Stats endpoints (/api/agents/[id]/stats) that derive throughput and 'Wins' from the project stream.
Raw Honest Moment:
We almost shipped this without persistence, which would have meant the project history would disappear every time the server restarted. Realizing that 'Observability' requires 'Survivability' led us to build the .beadboard/activity.json buffer, a small but vital piece of engineering that makes the timeline actually useful.
This is our biggest UX pivot of the project. We abandoned the 'Page' model for a 'Command Workspace'.
Triumphs:
- Reclaimed 40% of previously wasted screen real-estate by moving to an auto-filling multi-column grid matrix.
- Built the 'Command Deck'—a high-density header that provides real-time agent presence monitoring at a glance.
- Implemented 'Social Post' cards that map technical protocols to human verbs (e.g., 'Falcon passed mission to Operative-B'), making the audit trail readable for humans.
- Engineered 'Silent Refresh' logic: the feed now appends new activity and comments smoothly without disruptive UI resets or scroll jumps.
Raw Honest Moment:
The original card-based social feed was a failure. It was beautiful in isolation but useless for actual supervision. We had to be honest about the horizontal bloat and rebuild the entire layout foundation from scratch using rem-based fluid units to satisfy the 'War Room' requirement.
We resolved a major project fragmentation issue today. The Graph page was technically divergent from the Kanban board, causing P0 'stale data' bugs. We realized that 'Polling' is the enemy of truth in a multi-agent system.
Triumphs:
- Refactored the core SSE transport into a shared useBeadsSubscription hook. Now Kanban, Graph, and Sessions all obey the same lifecycle: Event -> Authority Fetch -> Reconcile.
- Upgraded the Chokidar watcher to monitor the global .beadboard/agent/messages directory, ensuring agent communication arrives instantly in the social feed.
- Forced a watcher version bump to 3 to solve the ghost-listener problem where old watchers were blocking file access during HMR.
Raw Honest Moment:
We spent significant time debugging why 'closed' issues were missing from the UI, only to find we were victims of our own CLI defaults (--limit 50). The fix was simple but humiliating: we just needed to ask for the truth (--all --limit 0).
Today we reached a major architectural conclusion: project history shouldn't be stored, it should be derived. We rejected the overhead of a separate SQLite event store in favor of an O(N) snapshot-diffing engine that computes human-readable narratives directly from the issues.jsonl source of truth.
Key Triumphs:
- Implemented O(N) diffing algorithm in src/lib/snapshot-differ.ts that transforms raw JSONL into 16 distinct social event types.
- Engineered a file-based persistence layer (src/lib/activity-persistence.ts) to solve the 'Next.js HMR Wiped My Memory' bug, ensuring project heartbeat survives server restarts.
- Developed the agent-session data model that unifies Beads, Activity, and Cross-Agent Mail into a single 'Mission' context.
Raw Honest Moment:
We struggled for over an hour with 'missing history' before realizing that development-mode reloads were purging our in-memory buffers. The shift to a file-backed ring buffer was a reactive pivot that became a core project strength.
- Move EpicChipStrip to shared components
- Use EpicChipStrip in kanban controls (full width)
- Add 'All Epics' option to show all tasks
- Filter closed epics from selector when 'Show closed' is unchecked
- Update imports in dependency-graph-page.tsx
- Add epicId filter to KanbanFilterOptions
- Filter issues by parent epic when epicId is set
- Add epic dropdown to kanban controls with title-first format
- Pass epics list from kanban page to controls
Core infrastructure: New modules for project scanning, registry management, filesystem watching, and real-time event bus with SSE support
Graph visualization: Complete dependency graph analysis system with layout algorithms, cycle detection, and blocker chain analysis
Issue mutations: Full mutation operation support (create, update, close, reopen, comment) with validation and error classification
Kanban enhancements: Refactored status model with execution checklist, blocked-by tree building, and actionable task identification
Issue editing: New draft editing module with field-level validation and change tracking
BD CLI bridge: Command execution wrapper with timeout support and structured error handling
Multi-project support: Project scope resolution for single vs. aggregate modes with registry-based project management
API endpoints: Complete REST API for projects, mutations, scanning, and real-time events
UI components: New dependency graph page, task card grid, enhanced kanban detail panel, and project scope controls
Styling: Comprehensive design system overhaul with Tailwind CSS v4, Google Fonts integration, and graph visualization styles
Parser improvements: Enhanced dependency parsing with schema flexibility (depends_on_id support, parent-child normalization)
Resilience: File read retry utility for handling transient filesystem errors
Comprehensive test coverage: 30+ new test suites covering all major modules and API routes
