pan-admin-cloister · diff
git:20260918.7b95344 to git:20260924.53e125c
6 added, 1 removed. Audit A to A.
---
name: pan-admin-cloister
description: "pan admin cloister <cmd> — deacon-lite management: status, start, stop, emergency-stop"
triggers:
- pan admin cloister
- cloister status
- watchdog
- lifecycle watchdog
- emergency stop agents
allowed-tools:
- Bash
---
# pan admin cloister
Manage deacon-lite — the surviving watchdog. It observes and nudges or
notifies; it never reconciles a stored copy of pipeline state. Its four
routines: nudge work agents idle too long with unpushed work, nudge agents
stuck on a repeated API error, reconcile the dashboard's agent-liveness
cache against the terminal backend's own inventory, and reap agents left
behind on closed issues.
## Usage
```
pan admin cloister status [--json] # Show watchdog service status and agent health
pan admin cloister start # Start the watchdog (no-op if already running)
pan admin cloister stop # Stop the watchdog (running agents continue)
pan admin cloister emergency-stop # Kill ALL agents immediately — destructive
```
Stopping the watchdog does NOT stop running work agents — they continue in
their sessions. It only suspends deacon-lite's own nudges and liveness
reconciliation. Restart with `pan admin cloister start` to re-engage it.
## When to use each subcommand
- **`status`** — first stop for diagnosing why an idle agent wasn't nudged,
- or why the dashboard's liveness view looks stale.
+ or why the dashboard's liveness view looks stale. The `Deacon loop:` line
+ shows the last patrol the deacon child relayed to the dashboard
+ (`lastRunAt`, plus `lastRunError` when the run failed). `waiting for first
+ run` means the child is up but has not finished a patrol yet. A last run
+ older than three intervals (three minutes) prints red. The `pan up`
+ supervisor watchdog restarts the dashboard on that same condition.
- **`start`** — after a host reboot, after `stop`, or when `pan status` shows
no watchdog process.
- **`stop`** — when debugging the watchdog itself, or when you want to make
manual lifecycle interventions without it racing you.
- **`emergency-stop`** — last resort. Kills every running agent (work, review,
test, planning). Workspaces and branches survive but sessions
are destroyed. Use when something has gone catastrophically wrong (runaway
fork, memory exhaustion, billing alert).
## Confirm before emergency-stop
Treat `emergency-stop` like `pan wipe`: confirm with the user before invoking
it. It's not destructive to source or git state, but it terminates in-flight
work and the user will need to recover or restart agents.
## See also
- `pan admin specialists <cmd>` — manage review/test/ship specialist pool
- `pan recover <id>` — recover a crashed work agent
- `pan show <id> --health` — agent health and heartbeat
- `pan resources` — RAM/swap usage by agent
- `roles/work.md` — work-agent role definition