| name | logs |
| description | Find, read, and parse Penta rotating log files for debugging agent issues. Use this skill whenever the user asks to check logs, debug agent behavior, see what an agent sent/received, investigate errors, or diagnose streaming/parsing issues. Also use proactively when debugging agent problems — the raw JSON in the logs is often the fastest way to understand what happened. |
| user_invocable | true |
Penta Log Viewer
Penta writes rotating debug logs alongside its SQLite chat database. These logs capture every raw JSON line from agent CLIs, plus all application-level info/warning/error messages. They're invaluable for debugging agent behavior.
Log location
Logs live at ~/.local/share/penta/chats/<hash>/penta.log where <hash> is the SHA-256 hex digest of the resolved working directory path.
To find the log for the current project:
python3 -c "
import hashlib
from pathlib import Path
d = Path('<WORKING_DIR>').resolve()
h = hashlib.sha256(str(d).encode()).hexdigest()
print(Path.home() / '.local/share/penta/chats' / h / 'penta.log')
"
Replace <WORKING_DIR> with the project directory (defaults to cwd). The SQLite DB (penta.db) is in the same directory.
Rotating backups exist as .log.1, .log.2, .log.3 (newest to oldest). Max 5 MB per file, 4 files total (20 MB max).
Log format
Each line follows:
2026-03-27 19:30:15,123 DEBUG penta.services.agent_service: [Claude] raw: {"type":"message","role":"assistant",...}
Fields: timestamp level logger_name: message
What to look for
Raw agent JSON (most useful for debugging)
Every JSON line from agent CLIs is logged at DEBUG level with the pattern [AgentName] raw:. To extract raw JSON from a specific agent:
grep '\[Claude\] raw:' penta.log | tail -50
grep '\[Codex\] raw:' penta.log | tail -50
The JSON after raw: is the literal line from the agent's stdout (truncated at 2000 chars). This shows exactly what the CLI sent, before any parsing.
Errors and warnings
grep -E '(ERROR|WARNING)' penta.log | tail -30
Session lifecycle
grep -E 'Session (started|resumed)|Launching|stdout stream ended' penta.log
Thinking events (Claude)
grep 'Thinking:' penta.log | tail -20
Filter by time window
Timestamps are ISO-ish (YYYY-MM-DD HH:MM:SS,mmm). To see the last N minutes:
awk '$1 " " $2 >= "2026-03-27 19:25:00"' penta.log
Common debugging workflows
"Agent didn't respond" — Check if the process launched, if there were errors, and if stdout ended:
grep -E '\[AgentName\] (Launching|Error|stderr|stdout stream ended)' penta.log
"Message content looks wrong" — Compare raw JSON (what the CLI sent) against what ended up in the DB:
grep '\[Claude\] raw:.*"type":"message"' penta.log | tail -10
sqlite3 ~/.local/share/penta/chats/<hash>/penta.db "SELECT substr(text,1,200) FROM messages ORDER BY id DESC LIMIT 5;"
Arguments
/logs accepts an optional argument to filter:
/logs — show the log path and recent errors/warnings/logs <agent> — show recent raw JSON from that agent (e.g., /logs claude)/logs errors — show recent errors and warnings/logs raw — show the last 50 raw JSON lines from all agents/logs path — just print the log file path
When the user provides arguments, use Grep/Read tools to extract the relevant lines from the log file. Start by computing the log path from the current working directory.
