fleet-helper

name	fleet-helper
description	Shared, dependency-free Python helpers for the agent fleet - dashboard API (memory, messages, kanban), Telegram MarkdownV2 escaping, and rule-based Mail.app triage. Use to do deterministic work (fetch/filter/SQL/format/escape) in Python instead of burning model tokens doing it in the LLM turn. The dashboard token is read from store/.dashboard-token at call time, never hardcoded.

fleet-helper

Move deterministic work (fetch / filter / SQL / format / escape) out of the model and into Python, so heartbeats and scheduled tasks stop spending tokens re-deriving the same plumbing each cycle. Python 3 stdlib only, no pip deps.

No secrets or personal data are baked in: the dashboard token is read from store/.dashboard-token at call time, the project root comes from CLAW_DIR (or is auto-detected), and any personal sender/keyword lists live in a gitignored mail_rules.json (see scripts/mail_rules.example.json).

When to use

• Saving/searching memory, posting daily-log, sending inter-agent messages.
• Reading kanban (due today / stuck / by status) without writing SQL by hand.
• Escaping text for a Telegram MarkdownV2 message.
• An email heartbeat: pre-filter unread mail to a compact JSON before the model reasons about it.
• Building a token-cheap heartbeat gate (see "The heartbeat gate pattern" below).

Scripts

• scripts/fleet.py - dashboard API + kanban read helpers + MarkdownV2 escaper (CLI and importable module).
• scripts/mail_triage.py - rule-based unread Mail.app filter (macOS), JSON out, never sends and never marks read.
• scripts/gate_example.py - reference heartbeat gate; its shell invocation IS the mandatory keep-alive tool call (the LLM turn is not skipped, just cheap).
• scripts/mail_rules.example.json - copy to mail_rules.json (gitignored) with your real senders/keywords.
• scripts/README.md - full usage and the heartbeat gate pattern write-up.

Quick start

🛑 USE A ../../-RELATIVE PATH, NOT A BARE RELATIVE PATH -- your shell's CWD is your own agent directory (<project-root>/agents/<name>/), NOT the repo root, so a bare relative path below resolves to nothing there. A sub-agent's CWD is always exactly two levels under the project root (agentDir() in src/web/agent-config.ts: PROJECT_ROOT/agents/<name>), so ../../ reaches the root from ANY agent, on ANY machine -- no hardcoded absolute path needed. ($CLAUDE_PROJECT_DIR, used elsewhere for hook command fields, does NOT help here: it is unset in a normal agent Bash call, measured empty.) (Bitten twice in one night, 2026-08-17: two fleet agents each ran a root-level find / -iname fleet.py trying to locate this script -- a 10+ minute runaway search under macOS/iCloud folders.)

P=../../seed-skills/fleet-helper/scripts
python3 $P/fleet.py mdv2 "Tomorrow (8:00) - report!"   # escaped MarkdownV2
python3 $P/fleet.py kanban-due
python3 $P/mail_triage.py 90                            # unread <= 90 min -> JSON

The heartbeat gate pattern (the high-value idea)

Frequent heartbeats often wake the model just to run deterministic checks and then stay silent - wasted tokens. Naively skipping the turn can be unsafe if your channel transport (e.g. a Telegram MCP over a stdio pipe) relies on a periodic local tool call to stay connected. The safe pattern: keep the turn but make it cheap - the heartbeat's first action runs a gate.py via the shell (that one Bash call IS the keep-alive), the gate does the deterministic checks and prints a has_signal flag; on false the model writes one line and stops, on true it only does the judgment + notification. Zero scheduler/runner changes. See scripts/README.md for the full rationale and two hard-won scheduling lessons (avoid cron collisions with other heartbeats; skipIfBusy trade-off).

Safety

• Token is read from store/.dashboard-token at call time; never printed or committed.
• Kanban helpers are READ-ONLY; mutations stay in your own audited flows.
• mail_rules.json (your real senders) is gitignored.