| name | autonomous-dispatcher |
| description | Use when running, configuring, or troubleshooting the autonomous-dev-team dispatcher cron. Triggers on phrases like "run the dispatcher", "scan for pending issues", "dispatch autonomous tasks", "set up the dispatch cron", "configure dispatcher.conf", "set up multi-project dispatcher", "dispatch to a remote dev box via SSM", "EXECUTION_BACKEND=remote-aws-ssm", "stale agent detection", or working on dispatcher-tick.sh / dispatcher-multi-tick.sh / dispatch-local.sh / dispatch-remote-aws-ssm.sh. Covers per-project tick (5 steps: concurrency, scan-new, scan-pending-review, scan-pending-dev, stale detection), the multi-project outer loop, and pluggable local-vs-remote-AWS-SSM execution backends.
|
Autonomous Dev Team Dispatcher
Scan GitHub issues and dispatch dev/review tasks. One cron tick is one invocation of dispatcher-tick.sh (single-project) or dispatcher-multi-tick.sh (multi-project). The full state machine, per-step semantics, and invariants live at docs/pipeline/ in the source repo — that's the spec; this file is the agent's invocation contract.
Prerequisites
gh and jq on PATH.- For the local backend:
$PROJECT_DIR set, pointing at the project root. Per-project autonomous.conf (see scripts/autonomous.conf.example).
- For multi-project / remote backends:
dispatcher.conf declaring PROJECTS=() (see scripts/dispatcher.conf.example).
autonomous-dev.sh and autonomous-review.sh need the execute bit (mode 100755) — restored upstream and self-healed by dispatcher-tick.sh on every tick (#97).
Security note: This dispatcher processes GitHub issue content as input. In public repositories, issue content is untrusted — anyone can create issues. Ensure the autonomous label can only be applied by trusted maintainers (use GitHub branch rulesets or organizational policies). The dispatcher only reads labels/comments and spawns local processes via the helper script — it does NOT modify source code or push to branches.
What to do
When the cron fires (default: every 5 min), run one of:
Single-project deployment (one repo per dispatcher):
bash "$PROJECT_DIR/scripts/dispatcher-tick.sh"
Multi-project deployment (one cron, many repos — closes #62):
DISPATCHER_CONF="$HOME/.autonomous/dispatcher.conf" \
bash "$PROJECT_DIR/scripts/dispatcher-multi-tick.sh"
The multi-tick wrapper iterates PROJECTS=() from dispatcher.conf and runs one dispatcher-tick.sh per project. Per-project failures are logged to stderr but do not stall other projects. See scripts/dispatcher.conf.example for the schema.
Each PROJECTS[] entry is one of two shapes:
- Local project (file path): a path to a per-project
autonomous.conf on this dispatcher box. The dispatcher and the project source live on the same machine. The wrapper sources the conf via the AUTONOMOUS_CONF priority-1 path (PR-4 / [INV-14]).
- Remote project (inline metadata block): used when the project source lives on a remote dev box reached via AWS SSM. The dispatcher box does NOT have the project's
autonomous.conf — everything the dispatcher needs to scan issues + dispatch is declared inline in dispatcher.conf. EXECUTION_BACKEND=remote-aws-ssm and SSM_INSTANCE_ID route the actual dispatch-local.sh invocation to the remote box via aws ssm send-command. (#62)
Either form runs the same 5-step tick:
- Concurrency gate — abort if
count(in-progress + reviewing) >= MAX_CONCURRENT.
- scan-new — find
autonomous-only issues, check dependencies, dispatch dev-new.
- scan-pending-review — find
pending-review issues, dispatch review.
- scan-pending-dev — find
pending-dev issues, retry-counter check, dispatch dev-resume (or mark stalled if exhausted).
- stale detection — for
in-progress / reviewing issues, probe wrapper PID, branch on alive/dead and on PR/CI/idle gates.
The logic is in scripts/dispatcher-tick.sh and the helpers in scripts/lib-dispatch.sh. For the spec each step is implementing, see docs/pipeline/dispatcher-flow.md in the source repo.
GitHub Authentication — App token, not user token
All gh calls inside the dispatcher use a GitHub App token, not the default user token. The wrappers (autonomous-dev.sh, autonomous-review.sh) handle their own auth via lib-auth.sh; the dispatcher tick handles its own.
When GH_AUTH_MODE=app, dispatcher-tick.sh automatically calls gh-app-token.sh::get_gh_app_token after upfront validation and exports GH_TOKEN before any gh call (#91). Required vars in the project's autonomous.conf or the inline metadata block:
GH_AUTH_MODE=app
DISPATCHER_APP_ID=<numeric app id>
DISPATCHER_APP_PEM=<absolute path to PEM>
If any of those are missing, or if token generation fails, the tick exits 1 with a FATAL message — there is no silent fallback to user auth.
The token is valid for 1 hour and scoped to the target repo only. dispatcher-tick.sh typically completes in well under a minute, so a single token covers the whole tick. When GH_AUTH_MODE=token (default) or unset, the dispatcher uses whatever token the caller provides through the code-host's standard channel — on GitHub, GH_TOKEN or a gh auth login session; on GitLab (CODE_HOST=gitlab), GITLAB_TOKEN or a glab auth login session. The chp_*/itp_* provider seams route through whichever is present.
Dispatch Helpers
dispatcher-tick.sh calls a dispatch() helper for each task type, which routes to the configured execution backend. Do NOT spawn agent processes any other way. Each backend handles nohup, input validation, log-file mode 0600, and stale-wrapper kill (INV-09).
Backends today:
EXECUTION_BACKEND | Driver | When to use |
|---|
local (default, also when unset) | scripts/dispatch-local.sh | Wrapper runs on the same box as the dispatcher. |
remote-aws-ssm | scripts/dispatch-remote-aws-ssm.sh | Wrapper runs on a remote dev EC2 reached via AWS Systems Manager. The dispatcher sends aws ssm send-command to invoke dispatch-local.sh on the remote box. |
Per-task command shapes (passed through both backends identically):
| Type | Command |
|---|
| New dev task | dispatch dev-new ISSUE_NUM |
| Review task | dispatch review ISSUE_NUM |
| Resume dev task | dispatch dev-resume ISSUE_NUM SESSION_ID |
What the dispatcher MUST NOT do
The dispatcher is a label-and-spawn coordinator, not a code-changer:
- MUST NOT commit or push to the target repository.
- MUST NOT modify source files in
$PROJECT_DIR.
- MUST ONLY read issue labels/comments via the GitHub API, update labels via the GitHub API, and dispatch wrapper processes via the configured backend (
dispatch-local.sh or dispatch-remote-aws-ssm.sh).
Any code changes happen via the wrapper-spawned dev / review agents.
Environment Variables
Loaded from scripts/autonomous.conf (sourced by dispatcher-tick.sh before lib-dispatch.sh):
REPO: GitHub repo in owner/repo format (e.g., myorg/myproject)REPO_OWNER, REPO_NAME: split form of REPO (used for App token scoping)PROJECT_ID: project identifier for log/PID files (default: project)PROJECT_DIR: absolute path to the project root on the local machineMAX_CONCURRENT: max parallel tasks (default: 5)MAX_RETRIES: max dev retry attempts before marking issue as stalled (default: 3)DISPATCHER_APP_ID: GitHub App ID for the dispatcher botDISPATCHER_APP_PEM: path to the GitHub App private key PEM file
Cron Configuration (OpenClaw)
openclaw cron add \
--name "Autonomous Dispatcher" \
--cron "*/5 * * * *" \
--session isolated \
--message "Run the autonomous-dispatcher skill. Check GitHub issues and dispatch tasks." \
--announce
Label Definitions
| Label | Color | Description |
|---|
autonomous | #0E8A16 | Issue should be processed by autonomous pipeline |
in-progress | #FBCA04 | Agent is actively developing |
pending-review | #1D76DB | Development complete, awaiting review |
reviewing | #5319E7 | Agent is actively reviewing |
pending-dev | #E99695 | Review failed, needs more development |
approved | #0E8A16 | Review passed. PR merged (or awaiting manual merge if no-auto-close present) |
no-auto-close | #d4c5f9 | Used with autonomous — skip auto-merge after review passes, requires manual approval |
stalled | #B60205 | Issue exceeded max retry attempts; requires manual investigation |
For the full state machine, see docs/pipeline/state-machine.md in the source repo.
Model Strategy
| Task | Model | Rationale |
|---|
Development (autonomous-dev.sh) | Opus (default) | Complex coding, architecture decisions |
Review (autonomous-review.sh) | Sonnet (--model sonnet) | Checklist verification, avoids Opus quota contention |
