Monitoring VMs via Tapegun

Monitoring VMs via Tapegun

Trigger

Use this skill when the user wants to:

• Check what VMs are doing
• Monitor agent activity across VMs
• See tmux pane content from a VM
• Check if a VM is idle or active
• View pending messages for a VM

Connection

Tapegun commands are accessed through the Boxcutter SSH interface. You need SSH access to the orchestrator.

1. Check if BOXCUTTER_SSH is set in the environment (e.g., ssh svc:boxcutter)
2. Try ssh boxcutter (Tailscale MagicDNS)
3. Ask the user for the SSH command

Commands

Get all VM activity

ssh <host> tapegun activity

Shows activity for every VM: node assignment, status, pending messages, and the last 10 lines of tmux pane content.

Get single VM activity

ssh <host> tapegun activity <vm-name>

Shows detailed activity for one VM, including the full tmux pane capture.

Response Fields

• pane content: The last 50 lines of the VM's tmux pane — shows what the agent is currently seeing/doing.
• Activity status: active if the pane has content, idle if empty.
• Pending: Number of unread messages in the VM's inbox.
• Status: The VM's lifecycle status (running, stopped, etc.).

Usage Patterns

• Quick check: ssh <host> tapegun activity to see all VMs at a glance.
• Watch a specific VM: Run ssh <host> tapegun activity <name> to observe what a VM agent is doing.
• Detect idle VMs: Look for VMs with Activity: idle and Pending: 0 — they may be ready for new work.
• No activity data: If activity shows "no data", the VM may still be booting or the tapegun daemon hasn't started yet.