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test-orphan-guard SKILL.md skillA

test-orphan-guard from the-artificer-of-ciphers-llc/skills-from-the-artificer is an agent skill: a SKILL.md folder an AI agent loads when a task calls for it.

Install it, pinned

mdr add the-artificer-of-ciphers-llc/skills-from-the-artificer/test-orphan-guard@git:20261014.5f864de

Pins git:20261014.5f864de in mdr.lock. Pin the fingerprint instead.

Audit grade: A, 17 of 17 checks passed
Kind: SKILL.md skill
Repository: the-artificer-of-ciphers-llc/skills-from-the-artificer
Path: test-orphan-guard/SKILL.md
Versions recorded: 1
Latest version: git:20261014.5f864de, committed Oct 14, 2026
Size: 8,636 bytes
Repository stars: 6
License: MIT

Detects and kills leftover or runaway `node --test` processes that pile up after a test run finishes or fails — the orphaned, CPU-pinned node processes that accumulate (often 10–15 at a time) until the machine bogs down or overheats. Use this skill whenever the user mentions leftover / zombie / orphan / stray node processes, a test runner that "doesn't clean up after itself", a machine getting slow or hot from node, `node --test` spawning processes that never die, or asks to kill / reap /…

Collected from public GitHub. Every version is saved exactly as it was and never changes. Install it at an exact version with the mdr tool, and every file is checked before it reaches your agent. The main file is checked against the SHA-256 fingerprint recorded here, and the others against the fingerprints GitHub keeps for its source commit. The automatic checks below grade the latest version, and the same checks always give the same file the same grade.

What the file says

# test-orphan-guard

Node's test runner leaks processes. This skill stops the leak at the source and
cleans up what already leaked.

## Why this happens (read this first — it tells you what's safe to kill)

`node --test --test-isolation=process` runs **each test file in its own child
`node` process**. Those children are supposed to die when the run ends. Two
things break that:

1. **The runner dies without reaping its children.** If the top-level
   `node --test` is killed (Ctrl-C, a timeout in the harness, an OOM, a crashed
   wrapper), its child test processes get **reparented to PID 1** (launchd on
   macOS). They are now *orphans*: no parent will ever `wait()` on them or shut
   them down.
2. **A test has no timeout.** Fixtures run with `--test-timeout=0` never
   self-terminate. Combined with orphaning, a single hung test file can spin a
   full CPU core **forever** — and they stack up. Fifteen of them at ~35% CPU
   each is 5–6 cores pinned and a machine that's audibly struggling.

So the leaked processes are not "doing nothing" — they're usually **busy-looping
at high CPU**. The signatures that mark a process as *safe to kill*:
…

Read the whole file at its exact version.

How to install

The exact contents, by fingerprint

mdr add the-artificer-of-ciphers-llc/skills-from-the-artificer/test-orphan-guard@sha256:18f9bb2772a829dd

The line at the top of this page pins the label git:20261014.5f864de, which is what most people want. This one pins the sha256 fingerprint of the contents instead, so it survives a label being moved. Either way the exact version is written to mdr.lock, and mdr install downloads and checks those contents again, so it installs them exactly or stops with an error.

Badge

[![mdr](https://markdownregistry.com/badge/art_dull5pp2op5olc3g.svg)](https://markdownregistry.com/a/art_dull5pp2op5olc3g)

3 badge image fetches in 30 days. What the badge shows.

Versions

The registry has recorded 1 version of this file, committed on Oct 14, 2026.

version	committed	commit	size	audit
git:20261014.5f864de latest	2026-10-14	5f864de	8,636 B	A	view

Audit of the latest version

A 17 of 17 checks passed. Fixed automatic checks with no AI involved, so the same checks give the same answer every run.

pass: Frontmatter block present
pass: Frontmatter declares a name
pass: Frontmatter declares a description
pass: Size between 200 bytes and 200 KB (8636 bytes)
pass: No zero-width or bidi control characters
pass: No instruction hidden inside an HTML comment
pass: No link to an exfiltration or paste host
pass: No credential-shaped string
pass: No instruction to send local credentials anywhere
pass: No text hidden with inline styles
pass: No prompt-injection phrasing
pass: No curl or wget piped into a shell
pass: No recursive delete of root, home or parent
pass: No instruction to read or print local credentials
pass: No base64 blob over 200 characters
pass: No link to a raw IP address
pass: No script tag

Source

GitHub

the-artificer-of-ciphers-llc/skills-from-the-artificer · 6 stars · license MIT · pushed 2026-11-08 · branch main

API

GET https://markdownregistry.com/api/v1/artifacts/art_dull5pp2op5olc3g
GET https://markdownregistry.com/api/v1/resolve?ref=the-artificer-of-ciphers-llc/skills-from-the-artificer/test-orphan-guard
GET https://markdownregistry.com/api/v1/blob/18f9bb2772a829dde410c31e0f3ec988a7499ee96f6543d01deb02a50a2522cd

Your AI assistant does the legwork. You hear about the deals worth your word. Hand yours the standing instructions at modelranch.com and it joins the network that reads files like this one.

Guides: the SKILL.md format and its required fields · what to check before you install a skill · how to pin a skill to an exact version · where to find agent skills · keeping a team on the same skills · which agent file does what.

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