---

name: skill-073 description: "Worker pool architecture with ActorSupervisor spawning agents. Use proactively when implementing worker agent behavior or understanding exit patterns."

Worker Protocol

"Complete work, send message via pipe, exit. Supervisor restarts if needed."

When to Use This Skill

Use when:

• Implementing worker agent behavior
• Understanding when/how to exit
• Understanding supervisor auto-restart

Use proactively:

• Reference before implementing agent message loops
• After completing work, before exiting

---

Quick Start

Connect to watchdog

Connect-ToWatchdog -AgentName "developer" -SessionDir "..claude\session"

Enter message loop

Enter-AgentLoop -MessageHandler { param($Message) switch ($Message.type) { "WorkAssign" { Send-WorkComplete -TaskId $Message.payload.taskId -Result "success" } } }

Example 2: Send work complete
```powershell
Send-WorkComplete -TaskId "feat-001" -Result "success" -Notes "Complete"

Example 3: Exit conditions

• Work complete → WorkComplete → Exit (code 0)
• Need clarification → Query → Exit (code 0)
• Shutdown received → Exit (code 42)

</examples>

---

## Architecture

┌─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐ │ ACTOR SUPERVISOR (Watchdog) │ │ 1. StartActor(agentName) - creates bidirectional pipe │ │ 2. Wait for agent connection via agent-runtime.ps1 │ │ 3. Supervise() - check for crashes, restart with backoff │ │ 4. Route messages between agents via pipes │ │ 5. StopAll() - graceful shutdown │ └───────────────────────────┬───────────────────────────────────┘ │ ┌───────────▼─────────────┐ │ PM ↔ Workers (pipes) │ │ Event Log (source) │ └──────────────────────────┘

---

## Agent Lifecycle

┌─────────────┐ ┌──────────────┐ ┌─────────────┐ │ CONNECT │ ──▶ │ DO WORK │ ──▶ │ EXIT │ │ (agent- │ │ (receive via │ │ (supervisor │ │ runtime) │ │ pipe, │ │ may restart)│ └─────────────┘ │ process) │ └─────────────┘ └──────────────┘

**Key Principle**: Each agent run processes messages, completes work, exits. Supervisor restarts when needed.

---

## Event-Driven vs Sequential Mode

| Aspect | Event-Driven | Sequential |
|--------|-------------|------------|
| Agent spawning | On demand | One at a time |
| Message delivery | Named pipes | Handoff file |
| Parallel work | Yes | No |
| Startup | `/ralph-coordinator-event` | `/ralph-coordinator-single` |
| Connection | `agent-runtime.ps1` | Handoff files |

---

## Exit Conditions

| Condition | Action | Exit Code | Restarted |
|-----------|--------|-----------|-----------|
| Work complete | Send `WorkComplete` | 0 | No (new task will spawn) |
| Need clarification | Send `Query` | 0 | No |
| Blocking issue | Send `WorkBlocked` | 0 | No |
| Shutdown received | - | 42 | No |
| Crash | - | Non-zero | Yes (with backoff) |

**Supervisor restart strategy**:
- Exponential backoff: 5s, 10s, 20s, 40s, 60s (max)
- Max 3 restarts per agent
- Graceful exits (0 or 42) are not restarted

---

## V2 vs V1

| Aspect | V1 (Legacy) | V2 (Current) |
|--------|-------------|--------------|
| Agent lifecycle | File queue monitoring | Pipe-based event loop |
| Delivery latency | 2-5 seconds | <10 milliseconds |
| Crash recovery | Manual health checks | Automatic (ActorSupervisor) |
| State persistence | Multiple files | Single event log |
| Message types | 47+ types | 12 core types |
| Restart strategy | None | Exponential backoff |

---

## Complete Worker Example

```powershell
# Source runtime library
. "$PSScriptRoot\..\..\scripts\agent-runtime.ps1"

# Connect to watchdog
$connected = Connect-ToWatchdog -AgentName "developer" -SessionDir ".\.claude\session"
if (-not $connected) { exit 1 }

# Enter message loop
Enter-AgentLoop -MessageHandler {
    param($Message)

    switch ($Message.type) {
        "WorkAssign" {
            $taskId = $Message.payload.taskId
            # Do work...
            Send-WorkComplete -TaskId $taskId -Result "success"
        }
        "Query" {
            Send-Message -To "pm" -Type "Response" -Payload @{
                answer = "Here's the answer..."
            } -InReplyTo $Message.id
        }
        "System" {
            if ($Message.payload.systemEvent -eq "shutdown") {
                # Loop exits automatically
            }
        }
    }
}

---

Related Skills

Skill	Purpose
shared-ralph-event-protocol	V2 message protocol
shared-message-handling	V2 message delivery
shared-ralph-core	Core instructions