yoi/.yoi/tickets/open/20260607-095142-workspace-orchestrator-spawn-diagnostic-persistence/thread.md

Created

Created by LocalTicketBackend create.

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Plan

Background

yoi panel currently attempts to ensure the workspace Orchestrator on initial panel load. If Orchestrator spawn fails, the initial Ensure path can surface an unavailable diagnostic such as a scope conflict. A later panel reload runs in Observe mode and may replace the header/status with plain orchestrator missing, making the actual failure reason disappear within a few seconds.

This makes spawn failures look like a missing-state problem and prevents the user from reading the actionable error.

Observed example while dogfooding:

error: failed to create pod: requested scope `/home/hare/Projects/yoi` conflicts with pod `yoi` rule `/home/hare/Projects/yoi`

The scope conflict itself is expected in this situation: the current Pod is being used as the Companion and already owns workspace write scope. The UI issue is that the panel loses the prior spawn failure diagnostic on refresh.

Goal

Keep Orchestrator lifecycle diagnostics visible across panel refreshes until superseded by a successful Orchestrator state or a newer lifecycle diagnostic.

Requirements

• Do not change Orchestrator scope policy in this ticket.
• Preserve the distinction between:
  • Ensure lifecycle attempts that can spawn/restore and produce actionable failure diagnostics;
  • Observe refreshes that should not retry spawn.
• When an Ensure spawn/restore fails, keep the failure reason visible after subsequent Observe reloads that only report missing.
• Do not let stale diagnostics remain after the Orchestrator becomes live/restored/spawned successfully.
• Prefer a bounded recent lifecycle diagnostic stored in the panel/app state over recomputing or retrying spawn on every refresh.
• Make the diagnostic readable enough that short-lived errors are not lost to periodic refresh.
• Ensure actionbar Ticket gate messages, such as attention_required is set, do not obscure the Orchestrator lifecycle failure reason.

Acceptance criteria

• Reproduce by causing Orchestrator spawn failure, then waiting through at least one panel refresh: the actionable failure remains visible.
• When Orchestrator later becomes live/restorable/spawned, the stale failure diagnostic is cleared or superseded.
• Plain missing state still displays when no spawn has been attempted and no prior failure exists.
• No refresh path starts retrying Orchestrator spawn implicitly.
• Focused TUI model/lifecycle tests cover diagnostic persistence and clearing.
• cargo test -p tui ... --lib, cargo fmt --check, git diff --check, and target/debug/yoi ticket doctor pass.

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Plan

Delegation intent

Implement workspace-orchestrator-spawn-diagnostic-persistence in a dedicated worktree.

Worktree:

• .worktree/workspace-orchestrator-spawn-diagnostic-persistence
• branch work/workspace-orchestrator-spawn-diagnostic-persistence

Coder Pod:

• orchestrator-diagnostic-coder-20260607

Scope and boundaries:

• Keep Orchestrator scope policy unchanged. The observed scope conflict with the current yoi Pod is expected for dogfooding and should remain a visible diagnostic, not be solved by loosening scope.
• Preserve the current Ensure vs Observe lifecycle distinction. Observe refresh must not retry spawn.
• Persist or carry forward the most recent actionable Orchestrator lifecycle failure from an Ensure attempt so a later Observe result of plain missing does not erase it.
• Clear/supersede stale lifecycle failures when Orchestrator becomes live/restored/spawned or when a newer lifecycle diagnostic is produced.
• Keep Ticket actionbar gate messages separate from Orchestrator lifecycle diagnostics.
• Prefer a small panel/app-state model change plus focused tests over broad UI restructuring.

Relevant code map:

• crates/tui/src/multi_pod.rs: panel load/reload, OrchestratorLifecycleMode::{Ensure, Observe}, orchestrator_lifecycle, spawn_orchestrator_pod, snapshot assembly.
• crates/tui/src/workspace_panel.rs: panel model/header diagnostics rendering and actionbar behavior.
• crates/client/src/ticket_role.rs: Ticket role Pod launch path; errors from spawn/connect/initial Run should remain available to the TUI lifecycle layer.

Requested validation:

• Focused TUI tests covering diagnostic persistence and clearing.
• cargo test -p tui ... --lib for affected tests.
• cargo fmt --check.
• git diff --check.
• target/debug/yoi ticket doctor.

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Implementation report

Implementation report

Coder Pod orchestrator-diagnostic-coder-20260607 completed implementation in .worktree/workspace-orchestrator-spawn-diagnostic-persistence.

Commit:

• e15e9b7 fix: persist orchestrator lifecycle diagnostics

Reported summary:

• Added MultiPodApp state to remember the latest actionable workspace Orchestrator lifecycle failure.
• Later Observe refreshes that only report plain missing / stopped keep the prior actionable diagnostic visible.
• Stored diagnostic is cleared when the Orchestrator becomes live, spawned, or restored.
• A newer Unavailable lifecycle diagnostic supersedes the older one.
• Actionbar behavior and Ticket gate messages were not changed.

Reported validation:

• cargo test -p tui multi_orchestrator --lib
• cargo test -p tui --lib
• cargo fmt --check
• git diff --check
• nix build .#yoi
• ./result/bin/yoi ticket doctor

Caveat:

• target/debug/yoi ticket doctor was not available inside the child worktree; coder used the Nix-built binary after nix build .#yoi.

External review will be delegated before merge.

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Review: approve

Approved by orchestrator-diagnostic-reviewer-20260607.

No blocking findings. The implementation matches the ticket intent and is merge-ready.

Evidence:

• Ensure vs Observe is preserved. Initial load uses Ensure; refresh paths use Observe; observe does not restore/spawn.
• Prior actionable failure is retained across plain observe missing / stopped for the same Pod name.
• Plain missing without prior failure remains plain missing.
• Stale failures are cleared when Orchestrator becomes live, spawned, or restored.
• New Unavailable diagnostics supersede older ones.
• Ticket actionbar gating remains separate; lifecycle diagnostics remain in panel.header.diagnostics.
• Worktree is clean and merge-tree against current develop reports no conflict.

Reviewer validation:

• CARGO_TARGET_DIR=/tmp/yoi-review-target cargo test -p tui multi_orchestrator --lib
• CARGO_TARGET_DIR=/tmp/yoi-review-target cargo test -p tui --lib
• cargo fmt --check
• git diff --check develop...HEAD
• nix build .#yoi --no-link
• CARGO_TARGET_DIR=/tmp/yoi-review-target cargo run -p yoi -- ticket doctor

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