remote-tasks

Remote Tasks

Async cross-machine task delegation via SSH and Beads. Delegates work to Raspberry Pi and Pironman workers over Tailscale VPN.

Available Machines

Alias	Hostname	Tailscale IP	Capabilities
pi	raspberrypi	100.120.127.35	task-worker
pironman	pironman	100.75.2.44	task-worker, ntfy-server

See config/machines.json for the full registry.

Core Workflow

1. Delegate a task

./scripts/delegate.sh <machine> <task description>
# Example:
./scripts/delegate.sh pi "Check all Docker containers on Pironman and report status"
./scripts/delegate.sh pironman "Run database backup and upload to Seafile"

Creates a Beads task, syncs to remote, and sends ntfy notification to wake the worker.

2. Check status

./scripts/status.sh

Shows all machine online/offline status and pending tasks grouped by machine.

3. Retrieve results

./scripts/get-result.sh <task-id> [machine]
# machine defaults to 'pi' if omitted
./scripts/get-result.sh abc-123
./scripts/get-result.sh abc-123 pironman

Fetches full task output from the worker's Beads database.

Other Scripts

ssh-exec.sh — unified SSH wrapper

./scripts/ssh-exec.sh <machine> <command>
./scripts/ssh-exec.sh pi "df -h"
./scripts/ssh-exec.sh pironman "docker ps --format 'table {{.Names}}\t{{.Status}}'"

analyze-complexity.sh — auto-select model tier

./scripts/analyze-complexity.sh "<task description>"
# Outputs: "opus", "sonnet", or "haiku"

Heuristic: security/architecture/audit → opus; refactor/test/implement → sonnet; everything else → haiku (based on word count).

health-check.sh — system health

./scripts/health-check.sh

Checks Tailscale connectivity, SSH auth, Beads CLI availability, and worker daemon status on each machine.

Prerequisites

Before using remote-tasks, ensure:

1. Tailscale VPN — tailscale status shows both raspberrypi and pironman as connected
2. SSH keys — passwordless ssh raspberrypi and ssh pironman must work
3. Beads CLI (bd) — installed on this machine AND on both workers
4. jq — required by most scripts (brew install jq)
5. Worker daemon — must be running on each target machine (see worker/ directory)
6. ntfy server — running on Pironman at http://pironman:8080/remote-tasks

Delegation Patterns

Delegation for long-running work:

# Delegate, don't wait
./scripts/delegate.sh pi "Regenerate Pi-hole blocklists and restart gravity"

# Check back later
./scripts/status.sh

# Get output when done
./scripts/get-result.sh <task-id>

Quick remote execution (when result needed immediately):

./scripts/ssh-exec.sh pi "docker ps --filter status=running"

Before delegating complex tasks:

./scripts/analyze-complexity.sh "implement feature X"  # → sonnet or opus

Troubleshooting

Symptom	Cause	Fix
ssh: connect to host raspberrypi	Tailscale down	tailscale up
bd sync timed out	Worker offline	Check machine with status.sh
Task created but not picked up	Worker daemon not running	SSH to machine, check worker process
jq: command not found	Missing dep	brew install jq
ntfy notification fails	Pironman unreachable	Delegate still succeeds — task created