An `execute_task mode="async"` was invisible from the chat that started it.
The only trace was the receipt in the transcript and a row on the Tasks page
— which does not say *which* of those rows the assistant just spawned — so
"is it still going?" had no answer where the question is asked.
Worse, a task that did not simply succeed never came back at all. `run_job`
branched on `Ok`/`Err` first and routed by `job.kind` only inside the `Ok`
arm, so a failure or a kill left through the `Err` arm's unconditional
`hub.notify` — the home source (`/sethome`), worded "Cron job … failed" —
while the parent conversation sat waiting for a `task_completed` that would
never arrive. The wrong chat, and a wedged one.
The fix is a shape, not a branch: one `JobOutcome` classification, then one
`match job.kind` delivery site for every ending. An async task now ends in
its parent conversation whatever happened to it. The sink has a single
channel deliberately — to the model reading it, "it broke" is a result like
any other and must not be overlookable — so a failure is delivered as prose,
carrying whatever partial output the run produced, which is usually the only
clue about why. A cron job keeps the home notification: it belongs to nobody's
conversation. Cancellation becomes a third outcome rather than a flavour of
failure (`job_runs.status` has always had `'cancelled'` in its CHECK and
nothing ever wrote it), classified off the new typed `TurnCancelled` error so
nothing keys on a message string.
The strip above the composer is the visible half. `ServerEvent::TaskUpdate`
announces state to the source of the parent conversation only; the list is
`renderTaskStrip` (shared by the desktop copilot and the mobile chat), fed by
state on `ChatSession`. Each row links to `#session/{id}` — the page that
already shows, live, what a background agent is doing, and without which
"a task is running" is a fact you can do nothing with. Stopping is the
existing kill endpoint. A finished row clears itself after 20 s (its result
is in the conversation by then); a failed one stays until dismissed, and the
dismissal is remembered across reloads.
`GET /api/{source}/tasks` is what makes the strip survive a browser refresh:
the event is a broadcast with no replay, so without a load-time read a reload
would empty a chat that still has work running under it. It answers with the
running tasks plus failures from the last 30 minutes — the two states a person
can still act on. Successes are absent on purpose. Its window compares through
`datetime()` on both sides: `completed_at` is RFC 3339 and the cutoff is
SQLite-shaped, and `'T' > ' '` would let every same-day row through a window
meant to exclude it.
Not addressed, and worth doing next: a cron job's result should go where its
creator says, not always to the home chat.
The standalone Catalog page added nothing the Connectors page could not
do: drop it (component, route, sidebar entry) and move its affordances
onto the Connectors page — the Add-connector dropdown (marketplace /
manual form, now at #connectors/new) and per-row removal for the admin.
Replace the card grid with a sharper row list (4px radius) built for
scanning status and acting; the marketplace's back link now returns to
#connectors. i18n keys renamed catalog.* -> connectors.add/new/*.
Reframe TIC from an ownerless global loop into a per-user system agent.
The events it reads live in each user's own encrypted mcp_events, the
connectors that produced them run in that user's container, and the
notifications go to that user's hub — so the previous design (built
against the ownerless Conversation bundle, writing into system.db and
notifying a hub with no subscribers) was inert by construction.
Core changes
- TicManager owns no timer and no user list. It now exposes
run_for(user_id, pool, sessions, hub): one tick for one user, over
deps unpacked from that user's UserContext. Removed from the
Conversation bundle; Skald::tic_manager() is gone.
- New spawn_system_agents in wiring.rs: one instance-wide loop, spawned
post-construction with a Weak<Skald> (like spawn_user_lifecycle).
Each pass walks the directory and runs TIC for one user at a time —
sequential, because a pass is N container round-trips and N LLM calls
nobody is waiting on. A ConfigKeyUpdated on the interval key cuts the
current wait short; enabled is re-read per pass.
- A user whose database is still locked is skipped (normal, not an
error): the pool is the unlock token, so a user who hasn't logged in
since restart has no readable events and nowhere to record a skip.
- The configured tic.security_group is re-checked per user through
run_context::reconcile_group_for_user — a restricted member never
gets a tool set their role wouldn't grant; unconfigured starts from
role_default_run_context, never None (None = catch-all = wider).
- New system_agent_runs owner table (no user_id column — the file is
the owner): start/finish split so a crash leaves a visible 'running'
row, swept to 'failed' by the next start; safe because the scheduler
is sequential and single-instance. An idle tick writes nothing.
- counting_notify wraps the notify tool so the run log can report
notifications emitted without the tool knowing it's counted.
- The session's event channel is drained by a spawned task instead of
a dropped receiver — the translator awaits its sends and would wedge
at capacity.
EventLog::{Persist,Discard} on McpManager::new
- mcp_events is an owner table and its only reader (TIC) is per-user,
so an event is something that happened to someone. The per-user
runtime gets Persist; the ownerless global runtime gets Discard (its
pool is system.db, rows would be unattributable and unread).
API + UI
- GET /api/system-agents/runs: the caller's own run history, scoped
through require_context with no admin override (same promise as the
rest of the private pool).
- web/components/system-agents.js replaces tic-sessions.js. The old
#tic debug page inferred runs from leftover ephemeral sessions; the
new #system-agents page (sidebar group 'extensions', visible to
everyone — the data is the caller's own) reads the real run log.
- i18n: tic.* keys replaced with system_agents.* in en/it/fr.
Docs
- New docs/system-agents.md (user-facing: what TIC does, why it runs
per person, why a run can be missing). Updated docs/settings.md and
docs/index.md.
- agents/tic/AGENT.md reframed per-user: events are that person's,
memory is user-memory/ (private) — never shared-memory/.
- CLAUDE.md records the system-agents design and the EventLog seam.
Auto-scroll now yields when the reader scrolls away from the bottom, so a
fast-streaming reply no longer fights someone reading the start. Stickiness is
a flag driven by a passive scroll listener (not a per-flush distance check,
which breaks when one flush adds more than the threshold of content); scrolling
back within the band re-arms it.
Centralised in chat-session.js (_scrollToBottom(force) + _forceScrollToBottom
+ _messagesContainer hook), removing the duplicated overrides in copilot.js /
chat-page.js. Force-scroll is used where the latest must be shown: history
load, chat reopen, approval/clarification prompts, and message send.
A sticky 'jump to latest' affordance appears only while scrolled up.
dguiducci