name: watchdog
description: Use when configuring rig watchdog policies, authoring wake/refocus/alignment-checkpoint messages, or choosing the right intervention level for a stale-owner situation. The 3-level continuity-check stack (wake / refocus / alignment-checkpoint), the discipline that prevents cadence pollution and bureaucracy theater, and the artifact-pool loop-edge pattern for evidence-aware waking.
metadata:
openrig:
stage: factory-approved
sibling_skills:
# Sibling sweep 2026-07-19 audit: superseded control-plane-* family
# dropped (control-plane-watchdog now redirects HERE); kept the
# genuinely adjacent set.
- queue-handoff
- workflow-runtime
- refocus
- looping-workflows
- intake-routing
- human-in-the-loop
- status-not-chat-orchestrator
- oversight-team
Watchdog
Continuity checks are timed or evidence-triggered interventions that keep an agent workflow from going idle, drifting, or entering needless bureaucracy. They operationalize the refocus doctrine.
Use this when
- Authoring a watchdog policy for a long-running rig (artifact-pool edges, stale-owner detection, periodic reminders).
- Choosing the intervention level for a stale-owner situation: is this a wake, a refocus, or an alignment checkpoint?
- Drafting wake/refocus/alignment-checkpoint message text that prevents cadence pollution and bureaucracy theater.
- — scan vs wake intervals, conservative vs aggressive nudging.