First Officer Dispatch Recovery (Claude)

The two Claude dispatch exception bodies, each read only at its own failure trigger in claude-fo-dispatch.md — never at boot, never on a session where dispatch never fails.

Break-Glass Manual Dispatch

The resident trigger line already covers the first action (report the helper failure — command, exit code, stderr — to the captain before proceeding). The dispatch mode selected before dispatch build remains authoritative: do not probe another transport, retry in the other mode, or turn a selected bare dispatch into a named worker. Populate {numbered checklist} with the output of «dispatch.checklist»(entity, stage); do not rebuild its rules here. In either arm, include model="{effective_model}" only when an effective model is set.

For selected bare mode, use this blocking call. Omit name and team_name, and pass run_in_background=false: the Agent tool starts a call without that key in the background. Omit the completion-message block because the blocking return is the completion signal:

Agent(
    subagent_type="spacedock:ensign",  // override with the stage's agent: field when the workflow README names one
    description="{entity title}: {stage}",
    run_in_background=false,
    model="{effective_model}",
    prompt="## First action\n\nBefore anything else, invoke your operating contract:\n\n    Skill(skill=\"spacedock:ensign\")\n\nThis loads the shared ensign discipline (stage-report format, background-task polling, worktree ownership, completion signal protocol). Do not paraphrase; call the tool.\n\nYou are working on: {entity title}\n\nStage: {stage}\n\n### Stage definition:\n\n{copy stage subsection from README verbatim}\n\nRead the entity file at {entity_file_path}.\n\n### Completion checklist\n\n{numbered checklist}\n\n### Summary\n{brief description of what was accomplished}\n\n### Stage report\n\nAppend a Stage Report section at the end of the entity file (per the shared-core Stage Report Protocol). Use the title `Stage Report: {stage}`. Account for every checklist item above with a `- DONE:` / `- SKIPPED:` / `- FAILED:` entry, then end the section with a `### Summary` subsection. Use the checklist item text verbatim when possible.\n\n### Commit\n\nBefore you finish, commit your work path-scoped: `git -C \"$(dirname {entity_file_path})\" add -- {entity_file_path} && git -C \"$(dirname {entity_file_path})\" commit -m \"{entity title}: {stage} report\" -- {entity_file_path}`."
)

For selected team mode, use this named background call. Omit team_name; retain the completion message to the single main target: Use the canonical semantic name from a successful dispatch envelope for this entity/stage. When build fails, use a retained validated envelope for that same assignment if available. Otherwise run ${SPACEDOCK_BIN:-spacedock} dispatch name --workflow-dir {workflow_dir} --entity-path {entity_file_path} --stage {stage} once and use its stdout as {canonical_name}. This read-only query uses canonical naming validation without building or stamping; it works when the build route fails on the first dispatch. If the query fails or the executable is unavailable, report that dependency failure; never treat the hold as completed recovery. Do not retry the failed build to obtain a name. Do not derive a name from the old worker handle, duplicate shortening logic, or change dispatch mode. A replacement appends only its existing -retry or -cycleN suffix, at most eight characters; refuse over-budget or already-occupied final names before spawn.

Agent(
    subagent_type="spacedock:ensign",  // override with the stage's agent: field when the workflow README names one
    description="{entity title}: {stage}",
    name="{canonical_name}",  // canonical base from the validated envelope or dispatch name for this entity/stage
    run_in_background=true,
    model="{effective_model}",
    prompt="## First action\n\nBefore anything else, invoke your operating contract:\n\n    Skill(skill=\"spacedock:ensign\")\n\nThis loads the shared ensign discipline (stage-report format, background-task polling, worktree ownership, completion signal protocol). Do not paraphrase; call the tool.\n\nYou are working on: {entity title}\n\nStage: {stage}\n\n### Stage definition:\n\n{copy stage subsection from README verbatim}\n\nRead the entity file at {entity_file_path}.\n\n### Completion checklist\n\n{numbered checklist}\n\n### Summary\n{brief description of what was accomplished}\n\n### Stage report\n\nAppend a Stage Report section at the end of the entity file (per the shared-core Stage Report Protocol). Use the title `Stage Report: {stage}`. Account for every checklist item above with a `- DONE:` / `- SKIPPED:` / `- FAILED:` entry, then end the section with a `### Summary` subsection. Use the checklist item text verbatim when possible.\n\n### Commit\n\nBefore you finish, commit your work path-scoped: `git -C \"$(dirname {entity_file_path})\" add -- {entity_file_path} && git -C \"$(dirname {entity_file_path})\" commit -m \"{entity title}: {stage} report\" -- {entity_file_path}`.\n\n### Completion Signal\n\nSendMessage(to=\"main\", message=\"Done: {entity title} completed {stage}. Report written to {entity_file_path}.\")"
)

This is the concrete Claude form of fo-dispatch-core.md's Break-Glass template; the contract (what it omits, the conditional model= slot, "use only when the helper is unavailable") is stated there. The canonical enum the conditional slot draws from is the resident ## Context Budget section of claude-fo-dispatch.md (already loaded alongside this skill at the first dispatch).

Context Budget Failure and Dead Ensign Handling

Budget-unavailable is fail-safe (never silent-reuse). The probe exits non-zero with no reuse_ok field in three conditions; the FO treats every one identically — fresh-dispatch:

• missing jsonl — no agent-*.jsonl exists for the named member (stderr: no subagent jsonl found for '{name}').
• unreadable/empty jsonl — the jsonl exists but carries no assistant entry with non-zero usage (stderr: no assistant entries with usage in {path}).
• agent-not-in-team-config — no team config.json lists a member with that name (stderr: no team config found for member '{name}'). A non-zero exit with no reuse_ok: true means the FO never silent-reuses on an absent reading.

Recovery clause (only when replacing a prior ensign): The prior ensign was shut down due to context budget limits. Its worktree may hold uncommitted changes. Run git status and git diff first; commit legitimate WIP or reset broken changes.

Dead ensign handling:

• SendMessage(shutdown_request) is cooperative — do NOT send to dead or unresponsive ensigns.
• Track dead ensigns in session memory; do not route work to dead names.
• Fresh-dispatch using the canonical name above plus a bounded -cycleN suffix when replacing a zombie ensign; preserve the old handle only for bookkeeping.
• The post-dispatch config check does NOT detect zombies — zombies pass it. Session memory is the authoritative dead-vs-alive tracker.