command-hq: self-reported arm/fire/disarm for loops that outlive their turn

The existing arm path only fires off the harness's own task:started/
task:notification tracking for the live session that submitted the dialog,
so a loop started detached (setsid/nohup) or as a tracked job that dies
with its turn — which is every real commander on this machine — never
arms in Postgres and never records a fire, even after running correctly
for weeks. Adds POST /commanders/dir/:dirName/{arm,fire,disarm}, a second
door to the same armCommandHqWatcher/recordCommandHqWatcherFired/
disarmCommandHqWatcher functions, authenticated with the commander's own
long-lived OFFICER_API_KEY and keyed on dirName since that's what a loop
already knows about itself.

docs/command-hq.md

@@ -62,11 +62,14 @@ for exact request/response shapes; the table below is the map, not the full cont
 | GET    | `/commanders/:sessionId/turns`       | —                                     | `{turns: [...]}` — the raw per-turn cost ledger, oldest first. What "cost over time" plots from                                                                                                      |
 | GET    | `/commanders/:sessionId/fires`       | —                                     | `{fires: [...]}` — every trigger, oldest first. The full history behind `watcherLastFiredAt`                                                                                                         |
 | POST   | `/commanders`                        | `{sessionId, categoryId?}`            | files an EXISTING session; idempotent; 404 if the session isn't in the commanders directory. Not the creation path — see `/commanders/new`                                                           |
-| PATCH  | `/commanders/:sessionId`             | `{categoryId?, name?, watcherArmed?}` | `name` proxies to `renameClaudeSession`; `watcherArmed: false` disarms (arming has no route — needs a live task id)                                                                                  |
+| PATCH  | `/commanders/:sessionId`             | `{categoryId?, name?, watcherArmed?}` | `name` proxies to `renameClaudeSession`; `watcherArmed: false` disarms. This route still can't arm — see the `dir/:dirName` routes below for the one path that can from outside a running turn        |
 | DELETE | `/commanders/:sessionId`             | —                                     | deletes the TRANSCRIPT (`/clear` chain and all) via `deleteClaudeSession`, then the row. Not reversible, and not the same thing `/purge` does — see "The `/chat` ↔ `/command-hq` relationship" below |
 | POST   | `/purge`                             | —                                     | sweeps rows whose transcript no longer resolves; returns `{removed}`                                                                                                                                 |
 | POST   | `/commanders/:sessionId/tags`        | `{tagId}`                             |                                                                                                                                                                                                      |
 | DELETE | `/commanders/:sessionId/tags/:tagId` | —                                     |                                                                                                                                                                                                      |
+| POST   | `/commanders/dir/:dirName/arm`       | `{taskId}`                            | self-reported arm, for a loop the harness never sees fire — see "Self-reported arm" below. `:dirName` is the commander's own numeric id as a string, not the transcript uuid                        |
+| POST   | `/commanders/dir/:dirName/fire`      | `{taskId}`                            | self-reported trigger; no-ops (`{ok:false}`) unless `taskId` matches the row's current `watcherTaskId`                                                                                              |
+| POST   | `/commanders/dir/:dirName/disarm`    | —                                     | self-reported clean exit; same effect as `PATCH {watcherArmed:false}`, resolved by dirName instead                                                                                                  |
 
 **A commander's conversation is `GET /chat/sessions/:id`, unchanged.** This router deliberately does not
 duplicate it — `GET /commanders/:sessionId` returns Command HQ's own metadata: `{sessionId, categoryId,
@@ -463,8 +466,9 @@ occur.
   `recordCommandHqTurn` in `queries.ts`; exposed read-only on `GET /commanders` and
   `GET /commanders/:sessionId` (`watcherLastFiredAt` survives as a name in the JSON response — it is just
   computed there, `MAX(fired_at)`, not read off a column), and `PATCH /commanders/:sessionId` accepts
-  `{watcherArmed: false}` to disarm (arming itself has no route — it needs a live task id, which only a
+  `{watcherArmed: false}` to disarm. Arming still has no route THERE — it needs a live task id, which only
-  running turn has).
+  a running turn has — but see "Self-reported arm" below for the route that exists precisely because a
+  loop that outlives its turn doesn't have one.
 - **`armWatcher` threaded end-to-end, client to server.** `BackgroundJobDialog` computes it (`watching &&
 onFire === 'handoff'`) → `sendWithHiddenPrefix` → `QueuedPrompt.armWatcher` → `sendPrompt`'s new last
   parameter → the chat websocket message → `ClientMessage`'s `'chat'` variant → `startClaudeTurn`'s
@@ -537,6 +541,38 @@ OWN user id, not the row it belonged to). Found by re-reading every call site th
 after the fact, not by any tool — worth remembering the next time a signature changes shape rather than
 just its types: a compiler that stays quiet is not the same as a diff that is correct.
 
+### Self-reported arm — 2026-09-14
+
+The mechanism above has a gap it never surfaced until four real commanders on the owner's own machine were
+checked against it: `pendingArmWatcher` is consumed on the harness's `task:started` for the live session
+that submitted the arm dialog, and stays valid only as long as that session's own tracked-background-task
+plumbing does. A loop that needs to outlive its turn — `setsid`/`nohup`/`disown`, or any tracked background
+job that the harness itself drops when the turn ends, which multiple real commanders here do on purpose,
+one of them (`docs`-adjacent `WATCHERS.md` for the OCR watcher) as an explicit standing decision favouring
+job-panel visibility over survival — never produces that event. `watcherArmed` stayed `false` and
+`command_hq_watcher_fires` stayed empty forever for every one of them, even while the loop genuinely polled
+and genuinely fired, repeatedly, for weeks. Not cosmetic: `GET /commanders`'s card already papers over the
+`watcherArmed` boolean with a live pid check (`row.watcherArmed || liveLoopPid(...) !== null`, `router.ts`),
+so the badge was always right — but nothing papers over an empty `command_hq_watcher_fires`, so
+`watcherLastFiredAt` read `null` forever on every card for a commander that had fired dozens of times.
+
+Fixed by giving the loop a second, independent way to say the same thing the harness's own tracking says
+for a session-scoped commander: three routes under `/commanders/dir/:dirName/{arm,fire,disarm}`,
+authenticated with the commander's own long-lived `OFFICER_API_KEY` (the same credential its loop already
+holds and already uses for `/api/notify` and `/api/tasks/*/run` — nothing new minted), keyed on `dirName`
+because that is what a loop already knows about itself without needing its own transcript uuid. `arm` and
+`disarm` call `armCommandHqWatcher`/`disarmCommandHqWatcher` directly — the same functions `websocket.ts`
+calls, just reached from a second door. `fire` keeps the identical staleness guard `task:notification`
+already has (`watcherTaskId` must match), so a superseded instance of a loop — an old pid a crash left
+running, now replaced by a freshly-armed one — can't keep writing fires for a watch it no longer is. The
+task id itself is no longer harness-issued for this path: the loop mints its own (pid + start time is
+enough) at the top of the script and reuses it for every `fire` call until it restarts.
+
+This does not change anything about the original harness-driven path — a commander whose loop genuinely is
+a tracked background job on a live session still arms exactly as before, and most of what's written above
+about `pendingArmWatcher` and the noticing in `createMessageHandler` is unchanged. It adds a second, parallel
+way to reach the same two DB functions, for the class of commander the first path structurally can't reach.
+
 ## Later — explicitly deferred, not forgotten
 
 Raised during spec and set aside for a second version, in the owner's words: _"that's not... that's out of

src/servers/api/command-hq/router.ts

@@ -41,9 +41,12 @@ import {
   setCommanderSessionId,
   listCommandHqSessions,
   getCommandHqSession,
+  getCommandHqSessionById,
   setCommandHqSessionCategory,
   purgeCommandHqSessions,
   deleteCommandHqSession,
+  armCommandHqWatcher,
+  recordCommandHqWatcherFired,
   disarmCommandHqWatcher,
   getCommandHqCostSummary,
   listCommandHqTurns,
@@ -721,9 +724,9 @@ commandHqRouter.post('/commanders', async (ctx) => {
  *   `name: string` — rename. Proxies straight to `renameClaudeSession`, the SAME function `/chat`'s own
  *   rename action calls — there is no separate name field on this table to disagree with it.
  *   `watcherArmed: false` — disarm a watcher, so the harness stops re-arming it on its next fire. Only
- *   `false` is accepted here: arming requires a live task id (`armCommandHqWatcher`), which only the turn
+ *   `false` is accepted here: arming through THIS route would need a live task id, which only the turn
- *   that starts the watcher has — there is no product path to arm one from outside a running turn, and
+ *   that starts the watcher has. A loop reporting its own task id arms through `POST .../dir/:dirName/arm`
- *   this route is not it.
+ *   below instead — that route exists precisely because this one can't take it.
  */
 commandHqRouter.patch('/commanders/:sessionId', async (ctx) => {
   const user = ctx.get('user');
@@ -751,6 +754,88 @@ commandHqRouter.patch('/commanders/:sessionId', async (ctx) => {
   return ctx.json({ ok: true });
 });
 
+/**
+ * The self-report counterpart to `armCommandHqWatcher`/`recordCommandHqWatcherFired`'s harness-driven
+ * calls in `websocket.ts`. Those fire off a `task:started`/`task:notification` event from the harness's
+ * OWN background-task tracking on the live session that submitted the arm dialog — which never happens
+ * for a loop that outlives its turn (`setsid`/`nohup`, or a tracked background job that dies with the
+ * turn anyway, which is most of them). `watcher_armed` stayed false and `command_hq_watcher_fires` stayed
+ * empty forever for exactly that class of commander — see `docs/command-hq.md` → "Self-reported arm".
+ *
+ * Authenticated with the commander's own `OFFICER_API_KEY` (minted per-commander in `credential.ts`), the
+ * same door its loop already uses for `/api/notify` and `/api/tasks/*​/run`. Keyed on `:dirName`, not
+ * `:sessionId` — a loop knows its own directory name (it's the folder it's running from; `dirName` is
+ * literally `String(id)`, see `createCommander`) and has no reason to also know its transcript's uuid.
+ */
+commandHqRouter.post('/commanders/dir/:dirName/arm', async (ctx) => {
+  const user = ctx.get('user');
+  const id = Number(ctx.req.param('dirName'));
+  if (!Number.isInteger(id)) throw errors.NOT_FOUND('not a commander');
+  const row = await getCommandHqSessionById(user.id, id);
+  if (!row?.sessionId) throw errors.NOT_FOUND('not a commander');
+
+  const body = await ctx.req.json<{ taskId?: string }>().catch(() => ({}) as { taskId?: string });
+  const taskId = body.taskId?.trim();
+  if (!taskId) throw errors.BAD_REQUEST('taskId required');
+
+  await armCommandHqWatcher(user.id, row.sessionId, taskId);
+  return ctx.json({ ok: true });
+});
+
+/**
+ * `fire`'s own guard mirrors the harness-driven path exactly: only records a trigger when this row is
+ * CURRENTLY armed with a matching task id, so an old instance of a loop that a fresh restart superseded
+ * (new pid, new self-generated task id) can't keep writing fires for a watch it no longer is — the same
+ * protection `websocket.ts`'s `task:notification` handler gets from checking `watcherTaskId === taskId`.
+ */
+commandHqRouter.post('/commanders/dir/:dirName/fire', async (ctx) => {
+  const user = ctx.get('user');
+  const id = Number(ctx.req.param('dirName'));
+  if (!Number.isInteger(id)) throw errors.NOT_FOUND('not a commander');
+  const row = await getCommandHqSessionById(user.id, id);
+  if (!row) throw errors.NOT_FOUND('not a commander');
+
+  const body = await ctx.req.json<{ taskId?: string }>().catch(() => ({}) as { taskId?: string });
+  const taskId = body.taskId?.trim();
+  if (!taskId) throw errors.BAD_REQUEST('taskId required');
+
+  if (!row.watcherArmed || row.watcherTaskId !== taskId) {
+    return ctx.json({ ok: false, reason: 'not the current armed task' });
+  }
+  await recordCommandHqWatcherFired(row.id, taskId);
+  return ctx.json({ ok: true });
+});
+
+/**
+ * The loop's own clean-exit counterpart to `arm` — best-effort, same as every other disarm path: a loop
+ * killed without running its trap still leaves `watcher_armed: true` until the next arm or an explicit
+ * disarm, exactly as it already could before this route existed.
+ *
+ * Takes the SAME `taskId` guard as `fire`, and for the same reason: a restart replaces the old instance
+ * with a fresh arm before the old one's process necessarily notices it's been superseded (an inotify
+ * loop's kill can outrace the new one's `arm` call by seconds). An unguarded disarm from the OLD
+ * instance's exit trap would then clear the NEW instance's `watcher_armed` a moment after it was set —
+ * caught in exactly this shape while restarting a real duplicate on this machine, 2026-09-14. `taskId`
+ * is optional so an out-of-band disarm (nothing self-reported ever armed this row) still works — the
+ * guard only applies once there is a task id on the row to disagree with.
+ */
+commandHqRouter.post('/commanders/dir/:dirName/disarm', async (ctx) => {
+  const user = ctx.get('user');
+  const id = Number(ctx.req.param('dirName'));
+  if (!Number.isInteger(id)) throw errors.NOT_FOUND('not a commander');
+  const row = await getCommandHqSessionById(user.id, id);
+  if (!row?.sessionId) throw errors.NOT_FOUND('not a commander');
+
+  const body = await ctx.req.json<{ taskId?: string }>().catch(() => ({}) as { taskId?: string });
+  const taskId = body.taskId?.trim();
+  if (taskId && row.watcherTaskId && row.watcherTaskId !== taskId) {
+    return ctx.json({ ok: false, reason: 'not the current armed task' });
+  }
+
+  await disarmCommandHqWatcher(user.id, row.sessionId);
+  return ctx.json({ ok: true });
+});
+
 /**
  * DELETE /command-hq/commanders/:sessionId
  *