stage-signal

A tiny, harness-agnostic stage lifecycle CLI for agent orchestrators.

Coding agents run for a long time. Something else usually has to notice when a stage of work finished, failed, or got stuck waiting on the outside world — then start the next stage, pause, or alert a human.

stage-signal is that boring contract: a small CLI + on-disk status file that the agent writes and an orchestrator reads. No TUI scraping. No “it said done in the chat.” Just files, exit codes, and a few commands.

The job

Typical loop:

1. An orchestrator (cron job, bot, CI step, shell watchdog) starts a coding agent on one milestone.
2. The agent calls stage-signal start when it begins that milestone.
3. While working, it may heartbeat.
4. When finished it calls stage-signal done (or blocked / fail if it cannot finish cleanly).
5. The orchestrator polls stage-signal status or wait on a timer — then enqueues the next milestone or stops.

So: agents produce machine-readable stage signals; orchestrators consume them.

This is intentionally not a full multi-agent cockpit, not a test proof system, and not tied to one coding product. It is a filesystem API with a thin CLI.

States

Terminal states for a given attempt: done, blocked, failed.

Install

From PyPI (once 0.1.0 is published):

python3 -m venv .venv
source .venv/bin/activate
pip install stage-signal
stage-signal --help

System Python on macOS refuses bare pip install (PEP 668, "externally managed") — always use a venv as above.

From source (contributors):

python3 -m venv .venv
source .venv/bin/activate
pip install -e ".[dev]"   # installs the `stage-signal` entry point + tests
stage-signal --help
python -m pytest          # all green

python3.11+ with stdlib only — no third-party runtime dependencies. python -m stage_signal … works as an alias for the stage-signal command.

Quick start

# in your project
stage-signal init

# agent side
stage-signal start --stage impact-clarity --session "$SESSION_ID" --pid $$
stage-signal heartbeat
stage-signal done --summary "merged abc123" --git-head abc123
# or: stage-signal blocked --reason "..." / stage-signal fail --reason "..."

# orchestrator side
stage-signal status --json
stage-signal wait --state terminal --timeout 900

On-disk layout (default):

.stage-signal/
  STATUS.json     # current snapshot (normative)
  STATUS.md       # human mirror (best-effort, never normative)
  events.jsonl    # append-only history
  locks/stage.lock  # fcntl lock for read-modify-write cycles

Exact schema and exit codes: see docs/SPEC.md (normative) and docs/PRIOR_ART.md (background).

status / wait exit codes are part of the contract: 0 done/OK, 1 generic/corrupt, 10 running, 11 blocked, 12 failed, 13 queued, 14 wait timeout, 15 not initialized, 2 bad args, 3 illegal transition.

start --meta is repeatable and accepts two forms per entry (merged in order, later wins):

stage-signal start --stage demo --meta owner=OpenLoop --meta '{"ticket": 42, "flag": true}'

• K=V — value kept as a string (value may contain =; K= is empty).
• A raw JSON object string — JSON types (numbers, bools, null, nested objects/arrays) are preserved.
• Bare words, malformed JSON, and non-object JSON exit 2 with no mutation.

Minimal orchestrator loop (cron, bot, CI step, shell): see examples/orchestrator-watchdog.sh — it only calls stage-signal status --json / stage-signal wait and exits with the observed-state code above. Acceptance sequence: examples/orchestrator-smoke.sh.

Multi-stage queues (same contract, one dir walked against a queue file): examples/queue-orchestrator.sh --queue examples/sample-queue.md [--dir PATH] [--once] — done advances (exit 0), blocked/failed stop with 11/12, running/queued wait (or exit 10/13 with --once for cron). Smoke: examples/queue-orchestrator-smoke.sh.

What this is / isn’t

Is

• A clear stage lifecycle for overnight or unattended agent loops
• Readable by any language that can open a JSON file
• Usable from cron, bots, CI, or a human shell

Is not

• A replacement for git, CI, or issue trackers
• A multi-agent worktree / DAG orchestrator (use tools like ruah / similar if you need that)
• A proof-of-test gate (compose with something like agent-done-or-not if you need tamper-evident receipts before declaring success)

Why not scrape the agent UI?

Agent UIs and chat transcripts are for humans. Orchestrators need a stable, boring interface:

• Did this stage end?
• How did it end?
• Is the process still alive (heartbeat)?
• What git head / artifacts should the next stage assume?

stage-signal answers those without depending on one vendor’s session format.

Status

0.1.0: library (src/stage_signal/), full CLI (init, start, heartbeat, note, artifact, done, blocked, fail, status, wait, clear-terminal, doctor), unit + concurrency tests, examples/orchestrator-watchdog.sh (+ examples/orchestrator-smoke.sh), examples/queue-orchestrator.sh (+ examples/sample-queue.md, examples/queue-orchestrator-smoke.sh), CI (.github/workflows/ci.yml: pytest + both smokes + packaging check via python -m build / twine check, no upload). Contract: SPEC v1.

Docs

• docs/SPEC.md — normative contract (schema, CLI, exit codes)
• docs/COMPOSE.md — proof interop (--proof-ref / --require-proof)
• docs/RELEASE.md — release procedure (manual; no upload from agent loops)
• docs/PRIOR_ART.md — background research
• CHANGELOG.md — release notes

Prior art

We researched existing tools before writing this. Short version: several systems solve adjacent problems (verification receipts, process presence, full multi-agent orchestration). The niche here is a small stage lifecycle aimed at external watchdogs. Details: docs/PRIOR_ART.md.

License

MIT — see LICENSE.

Contributing

Issues and PRs welcome. Keep the scope small: lifecycle signals, not a platform.