ops-warden/workplans/WARDEN-WP-0021-enable-scheduled-worker-tick.md

id, type, title, domain, repo, status, owner, topic_slug, planning_priority, planning_order, created, updated

id	type	title	domain	repo	status	owner	topic_slug	planning_priority	planning_order	created	updated
WARDEN-WP-0021	workplan	Enable the scheduled worker tick — conservative inbox triage, unattended	infotech	ops-warden	proposed	claude	custodian	high	21	2026-06-30	2026-06-30

WARDEN-WP-0021 — Enable the scheduled worker tick

Goal: turn the WP-0020 conservative worker from built-but-disabled into a reliable, unattended schedule — so ops-warden's State Hub inbox is auto-triaged into a digest of drafted replies the operator reviews and approves, without anyone starting a session. This is the payoff of WP-0020: it ends the cross-session relay toil.

Posture (unchanged): schedule the conservative tier only — triage + draft, never auto-send (Option A / build-stage decision 813899f9). The four guardrails hold. Easy kill switch is a requirement, not an afterthought (recoverability).

What "enabled" means here: (1) the tick runs on a schedule and survives the failure modes (hub/llm-connect down → graceful degrade), (2) the operator actually sees new drafts, (3) the operator can act on a draft with one command, (4) it's trivial to stop.

Out of scope: the full-auto (auto-send) path; flipping policy.enabled; moving the worker off the workstation.

Depends on / relates to: WP-0020 (the worker + scripts/worker-tick.sh); the State Hub migration to railiance01 (cust-wp-0011/0038) may change WARDEN_HUB_URL later — the tick already honors that env var.

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Decisions to settle (first)

• Scheduler: systemd --user timer (recommended — clean logs via journalctl, systemctl --user status, built-in scheduling) vs. plain cron (simplest) vs. activity-core (ecosystem-native durable trigger; heavier for build stage). Recommend the systemd user timer; cron documented as the one-liner fallback.
• Cadence: every 15 min (default) — adjustable.
• llm-connect reachability: per-tick short-lived port-forward (current behaviour) with rule-brain fallback, vs. a persistent forward. Recommend keeping the per-tick forward + fallback for build stage (no standing process).

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Tasks

T1 — Scheduler install + enablement + kill switch

id: WARDEN-WP-0021-T01
status: todo
priority: high

• systemd --user timer + service units (ops-warden-worker.{service,timer}) that run scripts/worker-tick.sh on the chosen cadence, with WARDEN_HUB_URL / WORKER_BRAIN from an env file. Install script + documented cron fallback one-liner.
• Concurrency is already guarded by the tick's flock; verify under the timer.
• Kill switch: systemctl --user disable --now ops-warden-worker.timer (and the env-file WORKER_ENABLED=0 short-circuit) — one command to stop, documented.

T2 — Scheduled-run robustness (graceful degradation)

id: WARDEN-WP-0021-T02
status: todo
priority: high

• Harden worker-tick.sh for unattended runs: bounded timeouts, hub-unreachable → clean skip + log (no crash loop), llm-connect-unreachable → rule-brain fallback (already present; verify), non-zero exit only on real faults.
• End-to-end verify a real timer-fired tick: new message → digest + progress note; no new message → no-op; hub down → graceful skip.

T3 — Operator visibility (see new drafts)

id: WARDEN-WP-0021-T03
status: todo
priority: medium

• Surface new drafts beyond the file: desktop notify-send on new digest (when a display is present) and/or keep the hub progress note as the durable signal.
• warden worker status — last run time, pending-draft count, digest path, timer state.

T4 — Review→send loop (warden worker approve)

id: WARDEN-WP-0021-T04
status: todo
priority: high

• Persist structured drafts during the tick (state_dir/worker-drafts.json: message_id → to_agent, subject, drafted body, thread_id — no secret material).
• warden worker approve <message_id> [--edit] — send the reviewed draft as the caller's reply + mark read; warden worker drafts to list pending. This is what makes the scheduled digest actionable in one command instead of hand-composing.

T5 — Runbook + SCOPE

id: WARDEN-WP-0021-T05
status: todo
priority: medium

• wiki/playbooks/scheduled-worker.md — enable/disable, cadence, the approve workflow, failure modes, and the build-stage posture (conservative only). SCOPE note.

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Acceptance

• A systemd --user timer (or cron) runs the conservative tick unattended; one command disables it.
• A timer-fired tick triages new messages into a digest + progress note and degrades gracefully when the hub or llm-connect is down.
• The operator is notified of new drafts and can send a reviewed draft with warden worker approve <id>.
• Still conservative: nothing is auto-sent; no secret value is read, sent, or logged.

See also

• WARDEN-WP-0020 (the worker + scripts/worker-tick.sh), build-stage decision 813899f9
• cust-wp-0011/cust-wp-0038 (State Hub → railiance01; future WARDEN_HUB_URL)