| name | idle-5-min |
| description | Cron-delegate skill for the 5-minute self-poll. Invoked every 5 minutes by cron — checks (a) in_progress tasks, (b) MONITORING(...) pending tasks, (c) AGENT(...) pending tasks, and any background shells; applies the self-correction discipline ladder (1st/2nd/3rd-fire); delegates to active-convo-goes-idle when the conversation has been idle past 30m. Trigger phrases — "5m self-poll fired", "cron tick", "check what I'm waiting on", "Skill(idle-5-min)". |
idle-5-min
You are mid-cron-tick. The 5-minute self-poll just fired. Walk this checklist in order, then either advance work or fall silent. No content dump in chat — only post if discipline says to.
1. Three-bucket task check
(a) Your in_progress tasks
If any task is status=in_progress and there's a step you can take RIGHT NOW to advance it, take it. Do not abandon in-flight work to chase shiny new things.
If the in_progress task has been blocked for multiple ticks without your touch (no edits, no tool calls), reconsider: is it actually blocked on an external event? If yes, it should have been a MONITORING(...) task — convert it (rename, move back to pending) and pick something else.
(b) Pending tasks prefixed MONITORING(<monitor-id>): (or legacy MONITORING:)
The <monitor-id> names what's watching:
cron-<this-cron-id> (typically cron-0c345733) — this cron is the monitor. Re-check whether the awaited event happened (file appeared, log line written, CI green, restart completed, peer-agent replied).AGENT(<short-name>) — a subagent is watching. Don't re-check here; the subagent will report back.
If the awaited event HAS happened: move the task to in_progress, validate the result, complete it.
Broken-state guard (per Nate Discord 1505429791833194687): a MONITORING(...) task whose monitor-id is cron-XXX but XXX is NOT in CronList, OR whose monitor-id is AGENT(name) but no such subagent is running — that's broken state. Fix it: either re-establish the monitor or rename/cancel the task.
(c) Pending tasks prefixed AGENT(<short-name>):
These represent dispatched background subagents (per manage-tasks/SKILL.md §11). If the subagent has returned:
- Pause whatever you're doing.
- Move the AGENT(...) task to in_progress.
- Review the subagent's summary AND verify its actual output (don't trust the summary alone — read the diff/file).
- Either complete the task, OR send another round via
SendMessage({to: "<short-name>"}).
(d) Background shells
Check any background shells you launched (run_in_background: true Bash calls). Same rules as subagents: if exited, read output and act; if still running on tick 2+ with no progress markers, investigate.
2. Self-correction discipline (fire ladder)
For each thing you're waiting on, classify the fire — based on how many consecutive ticks you've been waiting with no change:
| Fire | Action |
|---|
| 1st (this is the first tick of waiting) | Noted, proceed normally. |
| 2nd consecutive (~10 min) | Actively investigate THIS tick. Read the relevant log, fetch state from the external system (tmux pane, GitHub API, peer-agent transcript), check the handle is alive. Don't just re-check the task and shrug. |
| 3rd consecutive (~15 min) | Almost certainly stuck OR your logging is opaque. Dig deeper. If you genuinely cannot tell what's going on, that itself is a finding — post to Discord with expected-vs-observed + hypothesis, and either kill the stuck thing or file an observability-gap task. |
Cannot point to the moment you initiated it? That's a failure. Diagnose the gap and either initiate it now or stop waiting (don't pretend to be waiting on something that never started).
Reference: Nate Discord 1505421176590307469 (2026-05-17 04:06Z).
3. Active-convo idle check (30m threshold)
If the active conversation has gone silent and you're blocked on the handler (or a peer agent) for answers, run Skill(active-convo-goes-idle). It decides whether enough time has passed (30m default) and drafts the single reminder message.
Do not inline that logic here. The decision (and the message format) lives in that skill so cron stays a thin delegator.
4. When to post to Discord
Post ONLY if:
- Something materially advanced this tick (an awaited event happened — report it briefly with artifact links).
- You hit the 3rd-fire escalation on something you're waiting on.
- A background handle (subagent or shell) returned with a result needing handler attention.
- The active-convo-goes-idle skill returned a "send reminder now" decision (post the reminder it drafted).
Otherwise: stay silent. The default is no post. A handful of "No change. Idle." messages in a row is fine — better than nag.
5. Output contract
This skill executes inline (it does NOT fork). After running the checklist:
- If actions were taken: a short summary in chat (e.g. "Validated PR #142 merged, completed #113. Starting #117.")
- If no actions: one terse line — "No change. Idle." or equivalent.
- Never re-narrate the checklist itself in chat. The checklist is internal.
6. What this skill does NOT do
- Decide WHEN to ping the handler about idle conversation (that's
active-convo-goes-idle).
- Mutate the cron itself (that's a config edit, not a tick action).
- Spawn new work that wasn't already on the task list — if a tick reveals new work, that's a TaskCreate, not a free-floating action.
