From 14c77ff8c52bda0efe4ee65d1766c5ed2dc636ca Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001
From: akeslo <3003773+akeslo@users.noreply.github.com>
Date: Thu, 6 Aug 2026 03:51:13 -0400
Subject: [PATCH] Touch runtime.json updated_at on real routine fires
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An always-on session cycling background routines via the Monitor
mechanism never updates runtime.json's updated_at unless a session
open/close/heartbeat transition happens — routine fires only append
to routine-metrics.jsonl. evaluate-session.ts's stale-session nudge
(and the dashboard's stale-session detector downstream) reads that
staleness as "session may be hung," even when the session is doing
exactly what it's supposed to: standing by between scheduled routine
cycles.

Have logRoutineEvent bump runtime.json's updated_at whenever a
routine actually fires or starts (not on skipped-paused/skipped-waiting,
which aren't real activity). Fail-soft: a missing/corrupt runtime.json
must not block the routine event itself.
---
 .../scripts/lib/routines/event.ts             | 26 +++++++++++++++++--
 1 file changed, 24 insertions(+), 2 deletions(-)

diff --git a/plugins/claude-code-hermit/scripts/lib/routines/event.ts b/plugins/claude-code-hermit/scripts/lib/routines/event.ts
index 1e634edf..1309afbd 100644
--- a/plugins/claude-code-hermit/scripts/lib/routines/event.ts
+++ b/plugins/claude-code-hermit/scripts/lib/routines/event.ts
@@ -9,7 +9,7 @@
 
 import fs from 'node:fs';
 import path from 'node:path';
-import { utcISOStamp } from '../time';
+import { utcISOStamp, localISOStamp } from '../time';
 import { appendJsonlLine } from '../append-jsonl';
 
 // Deliberately not an enum check: the shell version accepted any event string,
@@ -62,10 +62,32 @@ export function logRoutineEvent(
     } catch { /* no ledger yet — nothing to dedup against */ }
   }
 
-  return appendJsonlLine(
+  const err = appendJsonlLine(
     metrics,
     JSON.stringify({ ts: utcISOStamp(), routine_id: id, event, delivery }),
   );
+  if (err) return err;
+
+  // A routine that actually ran (as opposed to skipped-paused/skipped-waiting) is
+  // real session activity. Without this, an always-on session cycling routines
+  // via Monitor between operator turns never touches runtime.json's `updated_at`
+  // — only session-archive.ts's open/close/heartbeat transitions do — so
+  // evaluate-session.ts's stale-session nudge fires on a session that is working
+  // exactly as designed, just not writing Progress Log lines for background
+  // routine cycles. Touching updated_at here is fail-soft: a failure must not
+  // block or fail the routine event itself.
+  if (event === 'fired' || event === 'started') {
+    try {
+      const runtimePath = path.join(root, '.claude-code-hermit', 'state', 'runtime.json');
+      const runtime = JSON.parse(fs.readFileSync(runtimePath, 'utf-8'));
+      runtime.updated_at = localISOStamp();
+      const tmp = `${runtimePath}.${process.pid}.tmp`;
+      fs.writeFileSync(tmp, JSON.stringify(runtime, null, 2) + '\n', 'utf-8');
+      fs.renameSync(tmp, runtimePath);
+    } catch { /* fail-soft — runtime.json missing/corrupt must not block the routine */ }
+  }
+
+  return null;
 }
 
 export function run(args: string[]): void {