status

name	status
description	Check vaudeville daemon health — socket alive, model loaded, rules count, hook wiring, and recent verdicts. Use when the user asks "is vaudeville running", "daemon status", "check hooks", "why isn't my hook firing", "vaudeville health", "is the model loaded", "what rules are active", "check daemon", "health check", "is the daemon up", "status", or any question about whether vaudeville is working correctly. Also trigger when troubleshooting hook failures — a dead daemon is the most common cause.
model	sonnet
allowed-tools	Bash, Read, Glob

status

Quick diagnostic of the vaudeville system. Answers: "Is vaudeville working, and what's it configured to do?"

What to Check

Run these checks in order and report all results in a single summary.

1. Daemon Process

Look for active daemons by scanning PID files:

for pid_file in /tmp/vaudeville-*.pid; do
  [ -f "$pid_file" ] || continue
  session_id=$(basename "$pid_file" | sed 's/^vaudeville-//;s/\.pid$//')
  pid=$(cat "$pid_file" 2>/dev/null)
  if [ -n "$pid" ] && kill -0 "$pid" 2>/dev/null; then
    socket="/tmp/vaudeville-${session_id}.sock"
    socket_ok="no"
    [ -S "$socket" ] && socket_ok="yes"
    echo "RUNNING  session=${session_id}  pid=${pid}  socket_exists=${socket_ok}"
  else
    echo "STALE    session=${session_id}  pid=${pid}  (process dead, PID file leftover)"
  fi
done

If no PID files exist at all, report: "No daemon found. Start a Claude Code session with vaudeville hooks installed to spawn one."

2. Rules Loaded

List YAML rule files in the plugin's rules/ directory:

ls ${CLAUDE_PLUGIN_ROOT}/rules/*.yaml 2>/dev/null

For each rule, read the name and event fields from the YAML frontmatter to show what each rule detects and when it fires. Use the first two lines (name: and event:) — no need to parse the full file.

3. Hook Wiring

Read ${CLAUDE_PLUGIN_ROOT}/hooks/hooks.json and summarize which lifecycle events have hooks registered. For each event (SessionStart, Stop, PreToolUse, PostToolUse), list the commands and any matchers. The goal is to confirm that the rules from step 2 are actually wired into hooks.

Flag any rule that exists in rules/ but is NOT referenced in any hook command — that rule is defined but will never fire.

4. Daemon Logs (if running)

If at least one daemon is running, show the last 20 lines of its log:

tail -20 /tmp/vaudeville-${session_id}.log

If multiple daemons are running, show the most recently modified log only.

Output Format

Present results as a compact status report:

## Vaudeville Status

**Daemon**: [RUNNING | DOWN | STALE]
- Session: <id> | PID: <pid> | Socket: [ok | missing]

**Rules** (N loaded):
- violation-detector (Stop)
- dismissal-detector (Stop)
- deferral-detector (PostToolUse)

**Hooks** (from hooks.json):
- SessionStart: session-start.sh (daemon launcher)
- Stop: runner.py -> violation-detector, dismissal-detector
- PostToolUse[PR tools]: runner.py -> deferral-detector

**Unwired rules**: none | <list>

**Recent log** (last 20 lines):
<log tail>

Adapt the template to fit what you actually find — don't print sections that have no data (e.g., skip "Recent log" if the daemon is down).

Troubleshooting Hints

When reporting results, include actionable guidance for common issues:

Symptom	Likely cause	Fix
No PID files	Daemon never started	Check that hooks/hooks.json SessionStart hook is registered
STALE PID	Daemon crashed	Check log for errors, restart session
Socket missing	Startup race or crash	Restart session; if persistent, check disk space in /tmp
Rule not wired	Rule file exists but not in hooks.json	Add it to the appropriate hook command in hooks.json
Empty rules/	No rules defined	Use /vaudeville:add-hook to create one