logs

name	logs
description	Find, read, and parse Penta rotating log files for debugging agent issues. Use this skill whenever the user asks to check logs, debug agent behavior, see what an agent sent/received, investigate errors, or diagnose streaming/parsing issues. Also use proactively when debugging agent problems — the raw JSON in the logs is often the fastest way to understand what happened.
user_invocable	true

Penta Log Viewer

Penta writes rotating debug logs alongside its SQLite chat database. These logs capture every raw JSON line from agent CLIs, plus all application-level info/warning/error messages. They're invaluable for debugging agent behavior.

Log location

Logs live at ~/.local/share/penta/chats/<hash>/penta.log where <hash> is the SHA-256 hex digest of the resolved working directory path.

To find the log for the current project:

python3 -c "
import hashlib
from pathlib import Path
d = Path('<WORKING_DIR>').resolve()
h = hashlib.sha256(str(d).encode()).hexdigest()
print(Path.home() / '.local/share/penta/chats' / h / 'penta.log')
"

Replace <WORKING_DIR> with the project directory (defaults to cwd). The SQLite DB (penta.db) is in the same directory.

Rotating backups exist as .log.1, .log.2, .log.3 (newest to oldest). Max 5 MB per file, 4 files total (20 MB max).

Log format

Each line follows:

2026-03-27 19:30:15,123 DEBUG    penta.services.agent_service: [Claude] raw: {"type":"message","role":"assistant",...}

Fields: timestamp level logger_name: message

What to look for

Raw agent JSON (most useful for debugging)

Every JSON line from agent CLIs is logged at DEBUG level with the pattern [AgentName] raw:. To extract raw JSON from a specific agent:

grep '\[Claude\] raw:' penta.log | tail -50

grep '\[Codex\] raw:' penta.log | tail -50

The JSON after raw: is the literal line from the agent's stdout (truncated at 2000 chars). This shows exactly what the CLI sent, before any parsing.

Errors and warnings

grep -E '(ERROR|WARNING)' penta.log | tail -30

Session lifecycle

grep -E 'Session (started|resumed)|Launching|stdout stream ended' penta.log

Thinking events (Claude)

grep 'Thinking:' penta.log | tail -20

Filter by time window

Timestamps are ISO-ish (YYYY-MM-DD HH:MM:SS,mmm). To see the last N minutes:

# Everything in the last 5 minutes (adjust the timestamp)
awk '$1 " " $2 >= "2026-03-27 19:25:00"' penta.log

Common debugging workflows

"Agent didn't respond" — Check if the process launched, if there were errors, and if stdout ended:

grep -E '\[AgentName\] (Launching|Error|stderr|stdout stream ended)' penta.log

"Message content looks wrong" — Compare raw JSON (what the CLI sent) against what ended up in the DB:

# Raw from CLI
grep '\[Claude\] raw:.*"type":"message"' penta.log | tail -10
# What was saved
sqlite3 ~/.local/share/penta/chats/<hash>/penta.db "SELECT substr(text,1,200) FROM messages ORDER BY id DESC LIMIT 5;"

Arguments

/logs accepts an optional argument to filter:

• /logs — show the log path and recent errors/warnings
• /logs <agent> — show recent raw JSON from that agent (e.g., /logs claude)
• /logs errors — show recent errors and warnings
• /logs raw — show the last 50 raw JSON lines from all agents
• /logs path — just print the log file path

When the user provides arguments, use Grep/Read tools to extract the relevant lines from the log file. Start by computing the log path from the current working directory.