ao-session-monitor

name	AO Session Monitor
description	Properly inspect AO worker tmux sessions to detect working vs idle state

AO Session Monitor Skill

How to check if an AO worker session is active

Claude Code renders the ❯ prompt at the bottom of the tmux pane while the model is thinking above it. Checking only the last 5-6 lines will produce false "idle" reports.

Correct detection method

1. Capture at least 20 lines: tmux capture-pane -t <session> -p -S -20
2. Look for Unicode activity indicators: ✻ ✶ ✳ ✽ ✾ followed by an action word and duration
   • Examples: ✻ Cascading… (5m 34s · ↓ 3.0k tokens · thinking)
   • Examples: ✶ Germinating… (2m 21s · ↓ 1.2k tokens · thought for 7s)
3. Look for tool use in progress: Bash(, Read(, Edit(, Write(, Grep(, Glob(
4. Look for "Running…" — a Bash command is executing

State classification

Indicator	State	Meaning
✻✶✳✽✾ + duration	WORKING	Model is thinking or executing tools
Running… or timeout	WORKING	Shell command in progress
Baked for Xm or Sautéed for Xm	COMPLETED	Finished, went idle
❯ with no activity indicators in 20 lines	IDLE	Actually waiting for input
Press up to edit queued messages	QUEUED	Has pending message from lifecycle-worker
+uncommitted in status bar	HAS WORK	Edited files but hasn't committed/pushed

Common false positives

• ❯ visible = idle: WRONG. The prompt renders below the thinking indicator. Always check 20+ lines.
• No Bash in last 6 lines = not working: WRONG. The model may be in a long thinking phase between commands.
• Session shows old output = dead: WRONG. The model may be mid-thought. Check for activity indicators.

Shell one-liner for monitoring

for s in $(tmux list-sessions 2>/dev/null | grep "ao-[0-9]" | cut -d: -f1); do
  name=${s##*-}
  last=$(tmux capture-pane -t "$s" -p -S -20 2>/dev/null)
  pr=$(echo "$last" | grep -oE "PR: #[0-9]+" | head -1)
  uc=""; echo "$last" | grep -q "uncommitted" && uc="+uc"
  activity=$(echo "$last" | grep -oE "[✻✶✳✽✾] [A-Za-z]+…[^)]*\)" | tail -1)
  if [ -n "$activity" ]; then
    echo "  $name: WORKING $pr $uc ($activity)"
  elif echo "$last" | grep -qE "Baked|Sautéed"; then
    echo "  $name: completed $pr"
  elif echo "$last" | grep -q "queued"; then
    echo "  $name: QUEUED $pr"