| name | bip-epic-recover |
| description | Recover bip-epic Claude sessions after a host reboot — replay a planned-reboot manifest if one exists, else find the killed sessions by scanning jsonl, label them, and resume each into a tmux window. Use when a box running a bip-epic fleet rebooted and the tmux sessions are gone. |
| allowed-tools | Bash, Read |
/bip-epic-recover
A reboot of a host running a bip-epic fleet kills the tmux server and every claude process at once. The clones, their .epic-status.json/.epic-worklog.md, and the full per-session ~/.claude/projects/*/<id>.jsonl conversations all survive on disk, so the sessions are resumable via claude --dangerously-skip-permissions --resume <id>. This skill finds those sessions, labels them in human terms, and resumes the ones you pick into tmux windows.
The deterministic engine is the bundled epic-recover shell helper; this skill is the brain that turns its raw output into labeled choices. Run it on the box that rebooted — that is where the tmux, jsonl, and clones live.
Usage
/bip-epic-recover [project]
project is a path to a bip-epic project's main clone (the dir holding .epic-config.json), or its basename. Defaults to the current directory.
The bundled helper
This skill ships the epic-recover shell helper next to SKILL.md — no separate install. At the start of the run, set HELPER to its absolute path (this skill's base directory, given at invocation, + /epic-recover) and use "$HELPER" in every command below:
HELPER="<this-skill-dir>/epic-recover"
It needs GNU date (or gdate), stat, bash ≥ 4, and jq: it runs on Linux out of the box, and on macOS with brew install coreutils bash. It exits 2 with guidance if a prerequisite is missing.
Start tmux the usual way first (e.g. eval $(keychain --eval id_rsa) && tmux) so the server holds your ssh-agent; windows the helper creates inherit that env.
Two recovery paths
If the reboot was planned and /bip-epic-prepare-reboot parked the host first, a host-wide manifest at ~/.epic-recover/manifest.json records every session/window with its exact session_id. Replaying it is deterministic and lossless — prefer it. Otherwise fall back to the jsonl scan below, which infers the live-at-reboot set from file mtimes.
Step 0: Check for a planned-reboot manifest
"$HELPER" --manifest-status
- Exit 0 (
VALID …) — a manifest exists, was parked before the current boot, and is not yet consumed. Use the manifest path (Step M) and skip the scan entirely.
- Exit 1 (
none / stale / invalid) — no usable manifest (none written, parked after this boot, already consumed, or unparseable). Fall through to the scan path (Step 1). This is project-specific, so cd to the project's main clone first.
Step M: Replay the manifest
"$HELPER" --manifest-list
Present the plan grouped by session (real names, windows in order). Most windows resume straight to their recorded id. For any window with confidence=ambiguous, show its candidates and ask the user which id to resume (or to leave it a plain shell) — do not guess. Then replay:
"$HELPER" --manifest-resume \
["<session>:<index>=<chosen-id>" ...] \
["<session>:<index>=skip" ...]
This rebuilds every session by its real name with windows in order — Claude windows --resume'd to their ids, shell windows as bare shells — and reports "(from manifest)". Ambiguous windows not given an explicit pick are left as plain shells. On success it stamps the manifest consumed (renames it manifest.<boot>.done) so a later unplanned reboot does not replay a stale park. Then nudge resumed workers per Step 5.
Scan path (no usable manifest)
Step 1: Enumerate the killed sessions
From the project's main clone, run the helper's list mode:
cd <project-main-clone>
"$HELPER" --list
This emits one TSV row per Claude session whose cwd is the main clone or any worker clone and whose jsonl was active in the window before the last reboot (default 36h; EPIC_RECOVER_SINCE_HOURS to widen). Columns: last_active clone branch issue phase session first_prompt. There is intentionally no git-branch filter — a worker clone often returns to main while its conversation continues, and the main clone hosts several concurrent sessions (conductor, planning, topic coordination).
Step 2: Label each session
first_prompt is often spawn-prompt boilerplate ("IMPORTANT: Before doing any work…", "Caveat: The messages below…", a ralph-loop preamble) rather than the topic. When it is, peek deeper to name the session — read the first human-authored message past the preamble:
f=~/.claude/projects/$(printf '%s' "<clone-cwd>" | sed 's#/#-#g')/<session-id>*.jsonl
jq -rs '[.[]|select(.type=="user")|.message.content
| if type=="string" then . elif type=="array" then (.[]|select(.type=="text")|.text) else empty end]
| map(select(test("tool_result|tool_use_id|^Caveat:|^IMPORTANT: Before")|not))
| .[0:3] | .[]' "$f" | head -c 600
Turn each row into a short human label, e.g. #1481 → clade-matched ASR parity, pcp-pipeline #52 follow-ups, coordinate-pca, DASM planning. Note duplicates: a clone may have several sessions across the day; the newest is usually the one that was live at reboot.
Step 3: Present the choices and confirm
Show a compact labeled table (last-active, clone, label, short session-id) sorted newest first. Recommend the live-at-reboot set (newest per clone, plus the distinct main-clone sessions) but let the user choose. Always offer an explicit Recover all option alongside the per-session picks (and "Recommended set" / "Cancel"); when the user picks Recover all, pass every listed session-id to --resume in one call. Do not spawn anything before the user confirms which sessions to resume.
Step 4: Resume the chosen sessions
Pass the selected session-ids to the helper. Run this from inside the project's tmux session so windows are added to it (the helper detects $TMUX):
"$HELPER" --resume <id1> <id2> ...
Each becomes a window named <issue>-<clone> (workers) or the clone basename (main-clone sessions), running claude --dangerously-skip-permissions --resume <id>.
Step 5: Nudge resumed workers
A resumed worker reloads its context but sits idle — the ralph-loop wakeup that would have driven the next iteration died with the process. After each worker window finishes loading, send a one-line nudge so it resumes forward motion:
Host rebooted and this session was interrupted. Re-read .epic-status.json and .epic-worklog.md, then continue from where you left off.
Auto-send-keys timing against claude's resume-load is unreliable, so prompt the user to paste it (or do it interactively once the window is ready). Conductor/planning/discussion sessions usually need no nudge.
Notes
--list, --manifest-status, and --manifest-list mutate nothing; only --resume, --manifest-resume, and the bare interactive mode create tmux windows. Re-running the read-only modes is safe.- The manifest modes are host-wide and project-agnostic — they do not need
.epic-config.json and rebuild every session in the manifest, not just one project's clones. The scan modes (--list, --resume, interactive) still require .epic-config.json in the cwd.
- For a planned reboot, write that manifest first with
/bip-epic-prepare-reboot — it captures exact session ids from live processes, which is lossless where the mtime scan only infers.
- Driving a remote rebooted box from elsewhere: prefix the helper calls with
ssh <host> 'cd <main-clone> && bash <skill-dir>/epic-recover …', but resuming into tmux is cleanest run from a shell already inside that host's tmux.
- For a no-Claude recovery, run the helper directly with no args (
bash <skill-dir>/epic-recover) for an interactive numbered picker over the same data — less smart labeling, same engine. Symlink it onto your PATH if you want it as a bare command.
Manual verification
The manifest data paths are pure JSON logic and worth exercising after a change; the live-tmux/process parts of the partner skill are verified the same way (see bip-epic-prepare-reboot). Both helpers ship without a unit-test suite, matching this repo's shell-helper convention.
- Staleness — a manifest whose
parked_at is after the current boot → --manifest-status reports stale and exits 1 (recover falls back to the scan).
- Consumed — after
--manifest-resume, the manifest is renamed manifest.<boot>.done; a fresh --manifest-status reports none.
- Fallback — with no manifest,
--manifest-status exits 1 and the scan path behaves exactly as before.
- Ambiguity — an
ambiguous window is left a plain shell unless an explicit <session>:<index>=<id> pick resumes it.
