auton

Autonomy Diagnostic Skill

Purpose

When invoked, diagnose WHY the jleechanclaw + AO system is NOT autonomously driving PRs to N-green and merged. The system is supposed to do this without human intervention — if it isn't, something is broken.

Read first (mandatory before answering)

⚠️ DUAL-CONFIG WARNING (2026-04-15): Two AO config directories exist with different purposes:

• ~/.openclaw/ — CLI/interactive use (used by ao spawn, ao config, etc.)
• ~/.openclaw_prod/ — worker use (used by lifecycle-workers via launchd plist AO_CONFIG_PATH) Always diagnose BOTH or verify which is active — they can diverge and cause auth failures.

1. ~/.hermes_prod/ — Hermes agent config (the agent since 2026-04-12; OpenClaw is dead)
2. ~/.openclaw_prod/agent-orchestrator.yaml — AO worker config (used by lifecycle-workers)
3. ~/.openclaw/agent-orchestrator.yaml — AO CLI config (used by interactive ao commands)
4. ~/.codex/AGENTS.md — agent policies
5. ~/.openclaw/SOUL.md — AO decision-making policy (legacy; Hermes uses its own)

NOTE: ao-pr-poller is DEPRECATED and removed. Do NOT check for it or report its absence as a problem.

The system's intended behavior

AO lifecycle-worker (every ~5 min via launchd)
  ↓ detects non-green PR (backfillAllPRs: true)
  ↓ spawns agento session (ao spawn --claim-pr)
  ↓ agento: reads comments, fixes code, pushes
  ↓ agento: posts @coderabbitai all good?
  ↓ agento: runs /er evidence review
  ↓ CI passes, CR APPROVED, Bugbot neutral, comments resolved
  ↓ worker-signals-completion reaction fires → skeptic-review
  ↓ skeptic-review runs `ao skeptic verify` and posts VERDICT comment
  ↓ skeptic-cron.yml checks 7-green and merges when all applicable gates pass

Key config to verify (from the ACTIVE config — run Step 0 first):

worker-signals-completion:
  auto: true
  action: skeptic-review
  skepticModel: codex

And the repo must have a healthy skeptic-cron.yml workflow. approved-and-green may still exist, but it is no longer the canonical merge executor.

If worker-signals-completion is missing, auto: false, or not action: skeptic-review, that is the local skeptic trigger gap.

Full autonomy means: idea in → merged PR out, zero human clicks.

Diagnostic questions (answer each with evidence)

0. Verify active config path (MUST DO FIRST — 2026-04-15 lesson)

# Find which config workers actually use
ps aux | grep "lifecycle-worker" | grep -v grep | head -5

# Check if both configs exist and are different
diff ~/.openclaw/agent-orchestrator.yaml ~/.openclaw_prod/agent-orchestrator.yaml 2>/dev/null && echo "configs IDENTICAL" || echo "⚠️ configs DIVERGE"

# If configs differ, the WORKER config is the source of truth for auth/model issues
# Workers read AO_CONFIG_PATH from their process env — verify it:
ps aux | grep "lifecycle-worker" | grep -v grep | grep -o "AO_CONFIG_PATH=[^ ]*"

Why this matters: ~/.openclaw/ (CLI) and ~/.openclaw_prod/ (workers) can diverge. The 2026-04-15 auth outage was caused by ~/.openclaw_prod/ having model: gemini-3-flash-preview while ~/.openclaw/ had MiniMax-M2.7. Always check the worker config first for auth issues.

1. Is AO lifecycle-worker and orchestrator running?

# Lifecycle-worker
launchctl list com.agentorchestrator.lifecycle-jleechanclaw

# Orchestrator — sessions are hash-prefixed, NEVER use hard-coded "ao-orchestrator"
# Correct pattern:
orch_session=$(tmux list-sessions 2>/dev/null | grep "ao-orchestrator" | cut -d: -f1)
if [ -n "$orch_session" ]; then
  echo "ao-orchestrator FOUND: $orch_session"
  tmux capture-pane -t "$orch_session" -p -S -10
else
  echo "ao-orchestrator NOT FOUND"
fi

launchctl list com.agentorchestrator.lifecycle-jleechanclaw
tail -20 /tmp/ao-lifecycle-jleechanclaw.log

3. Are sessions being spawned?

tmux list-sessions | grep -E "^[a-z]{2}-[0-9]+"
ao session ls --project agent-orchestrator 2>/dev/null || echo "ao session ls failed"

4. Are sessions doing work? (or idle/zombie)

# For each jc-* session, check if agent is alive
tmux list-sessions -F '#{session_name}' | grep jc- | while read s; do
  cmd=$(tmux list-panes -t "$s" -F '#{pane_current_command}' 2>/dev/null)
  echo "$s: $cmd"
done

5. What are the non-green reasons per PR?

gh pr list --repo jleechanorg/agent-orchestrator --state open \
  --json number,title,mergeable,mergeStateStatus,reviewDecision

# Verify skeptic-review trigger wiring (REQUIRED for autonomous reviewing):
python3 - <<'PY'
import yaml, os
# Try worker config first, fall back to CLI config
for path in [os.environ.get("AO_CONFIG_PATH", ""), "~/.openclaw_prod/agent-orchestrator.yaml", "~/.openclaw/agent-orchestrator.yaml"]:
    if path and os.path.exists(os.path.expanduser(path)):
        cfg = yaml.safe_load(open(os.path.expanduser(path)))
        print(f"Config: {path}")
        print(((cfg.get("reactions") or {}).get("worker-signals-completion") or {}))
        break
PY

# Verify skeptic-cron is present and running:
gh run list --repo jleechanorg/agent-orchestrator --workflow skeptic-cron.yml --limit 3

6. Is CR rate-limited?

gh api repos/jleechanorg/jleechanclaw/issues/comments?per_page=5 | \
  python3 -c "import json,sys; [print(c['user']['login'],c['body'][:100]) for c in json.load(sys.stdin) if 'rate limit' in c['body'].lower()]"

7. Is the 7-green review + merge chain working correctly?

# Verify latest skeptic markers and VERDICT comment are bound to the head SHA
gh api repos/jleechanorg/agent-orchestrator/issues/<PR_NUM>/comments --paginate | \
  jq '[.[] | select(.body | test("skeptic-(gate|cron)-trigger|VERDICT:"; "i"))] | .[-5:]'

8. Is the stray-worktree bug blocking spawns?

git -C ~/.openclaw worktree list | grep -v "~/.openclaw\b\|~/.worktrees"
# Any /private/tmp/ or unexpected paths = stray worktree blocking new spawns

Common failure modes

Symptom	Root cause	Fix
Sessions spawn but die immediately	--claim-pr fails (stray worktree)	clear stale paths / targeted unlock
Sessions alive but no pushes	Agent hits rate limit or auth failure	Check agent logs, re-auth
CR never APPROVED	Rate limited (too many PRs)	Wait for limit reset, or reduce simultaneous PRs
7-green checks pass except skeptic	worker-signals-completion missing, marker mismatch, or skeptic-review failed	Verify skeptic-review hook and latest VERDICT comment markers
skeptic-cron runs but merges 0 PRs	No PR is truly 7-green	Inspect gate-by-gate failures in workflow logs
/tmp/ao-pr-poller.log missing	NOT A BUG — ao-pr-poller is deprecated/removed	Ignore; its absence is correct and expected
PRs cycling CR changes_requested	Agent not reading CR comments correctly	Check agento's comment-reading skill
Spawned sessions are idle shells	is_agent_alive_in_session returns false	Check Hermes gateway is running (hermes gateway status)

Output format

## Autonomy Diagnostic — <date>

### System health
- AO lifecycle-worker: RUNNING / STOPPED
- Orchestrator session: FOUND (hash-prefixed name) / NOT FOUND
- Skeptic-review hook: worker-signals-completion auto=true/false, action=X
- Skeptic-cron workflow: RUNNING / FAILING / NOT FOUND
- Active sessions: N (M with live agents)
- Open PRs: N total, N non-green

### Per-PR status
| PR | Non-green reason | Session | Session state |
|---|---|---|---|
| #NNN | <reason from log> | jc-NNN | alive/zombie/none |

### Root cause
<Primary reason the system is not progressing PRs autonomously>

### Recommended fix
<Concrete next step>