## Context
Until now, handing work to the in-cluster `beads-task-runner` agent required
opening BeadBoard and clicking the manual Dispatch button on each bead. We
want users to be able to describe work as a bead, set `assignee=agent`, and
have the agent pick it up within a couple of minutes — no clicks.
The existing pieces already provide everything we need:
- `claude-agent-service` exposes `/execute` with a single-slot `asyncio.Lock`
- BeadBoard's `/api/agent-dispatch` builds the prompt and forwards the bearer
- BeadBoard's `/api/agent-status` reports `busy` via a cached `/health` poll
- Dolt stores beads and is already in-cluster at `dolt.beads-server:3306`
So the only missing component is a poller that ties them together. This
commit adds that poller as two Kubernetes CronJobs — matching the existing
infra pattern (OpenClaw task-processor, certbot-renewal, backups) rather than
introducing n8n or in-service polling.
## Flow
```
user: bd assign <id> agent
│
▼
Dolt @ dolt.beads-server.svc:3306 ◄──── every 2 min ────┐
│ │
▼ │
CronJob: beads-dispatcher │
1. GET beadboard/api/agent-status (busy? skip) │
2. bd query 'assignee=agent AND status=open' │
3. bd update -s in_progress (claim) │
4. POST beadboard/api/agent-dispatch │
5. bd note "dispatched: job=…" │
│ │
▼ │
claude-agent-service /execute │
beads-task-runner agent runs; notes/closes bead │
│ │
▼ │
done ──► next tick picks up the next bead ───────────────┘
CronJob: beads-reaper (every 10 min)
for bead (assignee=agent, status=in_progress, updated_at > 30 min):
bd note "reaper: no progress for Nm — blocking"
bd update -s blocked
```
## Decisions
- **Sentinel assignee `agent`** — free-form, no Beads schema change. Any bd
client can set it (`bd assign <id> agent`).
- **Sequential dispatch** — matches the service's `asyncio.Lock`. With a
2-min poll cadence and ~5-min average run, throughput is ~12 beads/hour.
Parallelism is a separate plan.
- **Fixed agent `beads-task-runner`** — read-only rails, matches the manual
Dispatch button. Broader-privilege agents stay manual via BeadBoard UI.
- **Image reuse** — the claude-agent-service image already ships `bd`, `jq`,
`curl`; a new CronJob-specific image would duplicate 400MB of infra tooling.
Mirror `claude_agent_service_image_tag` locally; bump on rebuild.
- **ConfigMap-mounted `metadata.json`** — declarative TF rather than reusing
the image-seeded file. The script copies it into `/tmp/.beads/` because bd
may touch the parent dir and ConfigMap mounts are read-only.
- **Kill switch (`beads_dispatcher_enabled`)** — single bool, default true.
When false, `suspend: true` on both CronJobs; manual Dispatch keeps working.
- **Reaper threshold 30 min** — `bd note` bumps `updated_at`, so a well-behaved
`beads-task-runner` never trips the reaper. Failures trip it; pod crashes
(in-memory job state lost) also trip it.
## What is NOT in this change
- No Terraform apply — requires Vault OIDC + cluster access. Apply manually:
`cd infra/stacks/beads-server && scripts/tg apply`
- No change to `claude-agent-service/` (already ships bd/jq/curl)
- No change to `beadboard/` (`/api/agent-dispatch` + `/api/agent-status` reused)
- No change to the `beads-task-runner` agent definition (rails unchanged)
- Parallelism: single-slot is MVP; multi-slot dispatch is a separate plan.
## Deviations from plan
Minor, documented in code comments:
- Reaper uses `.updated_at` instead of the plan's `.notes[].created_at`. bd
serializes `notes` as a string (not an array), and every `bd note` bumps
`updated_at` — equivalent for the reaper's purpose.
- ISO-8601 parsed via `python3`, not `date -d` — Alpine's busybox lacks GNU
`-d` and the image has python3.
- `HOME=/tmp` set as a safety net — bd may try to write state/lock files.
## Test plan
### Automated
```
$ cd infra/stacks/beads-server && terraform init -backend=false
Terraform has been successfully initialized!
$ terraform validate
Warning: Deprecated Resource (kubernetes_namespace → v1) # pre-existing, unrelated
Success! The configuration is valid, but there were some validation warnings as shown above.
$ terraform fmt stacks/beads-server/main.tf
# (no output — already formatted)
```
### Manual verification
1. **Apply**
```
vault login -method=oidc
cd infra/stacks/beads-server
scripts/tg apply
```
Expect: `kubernetes_config_map.beads_metadata`,
`kubernetes_cron_job_v1.beads_dispatcher`, `kubernetes_cron_job_v1.beads_reaper`
created. No changes to existing resources.
2. **CronJobs exist with right schedule**
```
kubectl -n beads-server get cronjob
```
Expect `beads-dispatcher */2 * * * *` and `beads-reaper */10 * * * *`,
both with `SUSPEND=False`.
3. **End-to-end smoke**
```
bd create "auto-dispatch smoke test" \
-d "Read /etc/hostname inside the agent sandbox and close." \
--acceptance "bd note includes 'hostname=' line and bead is closed."
bd assign <new-id> agent
# within 2 min:
bd show <new-id> --json | jq '{status, notes}'
```
Expect notes to contain `auto-dispatcher claimed at …` and
`dispatched: job=<uuid>`, status `in_progress`.
4. **Reaper smoke**
Assign + dispatch a long bead, then
`kubectl -n claude-agent delete pod -l app=claude-agent-service`. Within
30 min + one reaper tick, `bd show <id>` shows `blocked` with a
`reaper: no progress for Nm — blocking` note.
5. **Kill switch**
```
cd infra/stacks/beads-server
scripts/tg apply -var=beads_dispatcher_enabled=false
kubectl -n beads-server get cronjob
```
Expect `SUSPEND=True` on both CronJobs. Assign a bead to `agent`; verify
nothing happens within 5 min. Re-apply with `=true` to re-enable.
Runbook with all above plus reaper semantics + design choices at
`infra/docs/runbooks/beads-auto-dispatch.md`.
Closes: code-8sm
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.7 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
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