| name | heinzel-housekeeping |
| argument-hint | [hostname] |
| description | Run a heinzel housekeeping (health) inspection on a server — disk, memory, load, pending updates, firewall, SSL certs, failed systemd units, logs, kernel reboot status, and service-specific checks. Use when the user asks to "run housekeeping", "housekeeping report", "run a health check on <host>", or "do routine inspection". Do NOT auto-invoke for ambiguous requests like "check server <host>" — that's reserved for quick queries. Covers Linux (Debian, Ubuntu, RHEL, CentOS, Fedora, SUSE) and macOS. |
heinzel-housekeeping
Routine health inspection for a server or the local machine.
Never run automatically — only on explicit user request. The
whole of the heinzel first-connection onboarding pipeline still
applies before any of this runs.
Workflow
-
Load overrides. Before running any check, apply the full
heinzel rule-override chain (later wins):
memory/custom-rules/heinzel-housekeeping.md if present
(global custom overrides for this skill — ## Add:,
## Replace:, ## Remove: prefixes per CLAUDE.md).memory/housekeeping.md if present (additional cross-
server custom checks — free-form Markdown, gitignored by
default).memory/servers/<hostname>/memory.md (service list,
last-known state, per-server quirks).memory/servers/<hostname>/rules.md if present (per-server
rule overrides — same prefixes as above, highest precedence).
Note: memory/custom-rules/all.md is already loaded by the
CLAUDE.md session-start preflight — do not re-read it.
-
Select checks. Run all baseline checks for the detected OS
plus any service-specific checks triggered by entries in the
server's memory.md (e.g. PostgreSQL, nginx, Docker). The
backup-presence check from references/backup-presence.md
runs on every host, independent of memory.md entries.
-
Run the version check procedure from
rules/version-check.md for all Tier 1 software and include the
"Versions" section in the report.
-
Run checks in 2–3 parallel batches for speed — not one
massive batch. If a single parallel tool call errors, Claude
Code cancels sibling calls, so grouping limits blast radius.
-
Emit the report using the format in
references/report-format.md.
-
Update memory.md immediately after, if the checks
revealed changed facts (disk usage shifted significantly, a
new service appeared, a service was removed).
-
Log the summary to the system journal and mirror to the
local changelog per rules/changelog.md:
logger -t heinzel "Housekeeping: 1 CRITICAL, 2 WARN, \
all services OK"
References
Read on demand, only when the relevant section applies:
references/report-format.md — required output format and
severity rules (CRITICAL / WARN / INFO).references/baseline-linux.md — disk, memory, load, uptime,
updates, firewall, NTP, logs, SSL certs, kernel.references/baseline-macos.md — disk, memory, load, updates,
Homebrew, Application Firewall, SMART, time sync.references/backup-presence.md — generic "any backup at
all?" probe, the provider-snapshot question, and the
Backup: acknowledgment line in memory.md.references/service-checks.md — PostgreSQL, backups, nginx,
Docker, Ollama, node_exporter, NVIDIA GPU, MariaDB/MySQL,
WireGuard. Only run the ones the server's memory.md mentions.references/unprivileged.md — which checks work without root
and how to report skipped ones.
Scope and limits
- Linux (Debian, Ubuntu, RHEL, CentOS, Fedora, SUSE) and
macOS are fully covered by the baseline references above.
- FreeBSD baselines are not yet covered. On a FreeBSD host,
do not silently skip: run the closest equivalent checks
manually (
pkg audit -F, pkg upgrade -n,
freebsd-update fetch dry run, pfctl -s info for the
firewall, df -h / swapinfo / uptime for the basics,
service -e for enabled services) and state in the report
that FreeBSD has no baseline reference yet.
Custom checks
Users add their own checks in memory/housekeeping.md
(gitignored, free-form Markdown). The file describes what to
check, what commands to run, and what thresholds to use. Do not
pre-create an empty file — it is created when needed.
