diff --git a/src/servers/api/command-hq/watcher-revive.ts b/src/servers/api/command-hq/watcher-revive.ts
index 39c1220e..acca3da0 100644
--- a/src/servers/api/command-hq/watcher-revive.ts
+++ b/src/servers/api/command-hq/watcher-revive.ts
@@ -2,9 +2,8 @@ import { listAllCommanders, getUserById } from 'officerdb';
 import { getCommanderStateDir } from '@@/data-path';
 import { existsSync, readFileSync, writeFileSync } from 'node:fs';
 import { join } from 'node:path';
-import { startClaudeTurn, COMMANDER_DEFAULT_MODEL, collectRunningTasks } from '../chat/websocket';
-import { getChatEventsSince } from 'officerdb';
-import type { ServerMessage } from '../chat/types';
+import { startClaudeTurn, COMMANDER_DEFAULT_MODEL } from '../chat/websocket';
+import * as sidecar from '@@/sidecar-registry';
 import { clearLoopPid, liveLoopPids } from './spawned';
 import { getNotifyServerUrl, notifyProducerHeaders } from '../notify/router';
 
@@ -129,17 +128,33 @@ function clearAttempts(email: string, dirName: string): void {
  * answer to "is this watching", not that a fire was observed being misread. Either way the window is real:
  * between a watcher exiting and its agent re-arming, the file names a process that is gone.
  *
- * Hence `isGenerating`: if a turn is running, the exit is being handled and the re-arm is the last thing
- * that turn will do. Waking then is not just wasteful, it is wrong — it would arrive mid-work carrying an
- * instruction the agent has no reason to obey.
+ * Hence the generating check: if a TURN is running, the exit is being handled and the re-arm is the last
+ * thing that turn will do. Waking then is not just wasteful, it is wrong — it would arrive mid-work
+ * carrying an instruction the agent has no reason to obey.
+ *
+ * ── "generating" is not "has an outstanding background task" ──
+ *
+ * This asked `collectRunningTasks` until 2026-08-26, and that was wrong in a way that disabled the whole
+ * feature. Those are BACKGROUND TASKS, and **a commander's watcher is itself a background task** — one that
+ * stays outstanding until it reports a terminal state, which a killed process never does. So every
+ * commander with an armed watcher had one outstanding by definition, the check returned "busy" forever, and
+ * the reviver could never wake the one thing it exists for.
+ *
+ * Found on the deploy commander: its loop was dead, its pid file said so, and the task
+ * "Platform Deployer watcher — polls origin for deploy/* tags" was still marked running from the revival
+ * six hours earlier. The guard was permanently true.
+ *
+ * The right question is whether the AGENT is mid-turn, which the sidecar answers directly.
  */
-async function watchDied(email: string, dirName: string, sessionId: string): Promise<boolean> {
+async function watchDied(email: string, dirName: string, sessionId: string, userId: number): Promise<boolean> {
   if (!existsSync(join(getCommanderStateDir(email, dirName), PID_FILE))) return false;
   if (liveLoopPids(email, dirName).length > 0) return false;
 
   try {
-    const events = await getChatEventsSince(sessionId, 0);
-    if (collectRunningTasks(events.map((e) => e.event as ServerMessage)).length > 0) return false;
+    const live = await sidecar.listLiveClaudeSessions(userId);
+    const mine = live.find((s) => s.sessionKey === sessionId || s.claudeSessionId === sessionId);
+    // Absent means idle or collected, and both are fine — `fire` resumes by transcript id.
+    if (mine?.isGenerating) return false;
   } catch {
     // Cannot tell whether it is working, so assume it is. A missed revival is reported next tick; a wake
     // delivered into a live turn is not recoverable by waiting.
@@ -271,7 +286,7 @@ export function startWatcherRevive(): void {
       for (const commander of await listAllCommanders()) {
         const user = await getUserById(commander.userId);
         if (!user) continue;
-        if (!(await watchDied(user.email, commander.dirName, commander.sessionId))) {
+        if (!(await watchDied(user.email, commander.dirName, commander.sessionId, commander.userId))) {
           // Healthy, stopped, or mid-turn. A live loop means the last wake worked, so the count resets.
           if (liveLoopPids(user.email, commander.dirName).length > 0) clearAttempts(user.email, commander.dirName);
           continue;