fix: heartbeat keepalive + session validation path fix

Two remaining gaps in v0.7.4:

1. Heartbeat: task_notification SDK events only fire on completion, not during
   sub-agent execution. The stderr idle reset was therefore insufficient for
   long Task waits. Agent-runner now writes a keepalive marker to stdout every
   2 minutes — container-runner resets idle timer on any stdout data, so long
   Task waits no longer trigger false stall timeouts.

2. Session validation path: the leading slash in the CWD was being stripped
   (.replace(/^-/, '')) when constructing the session .jsonl path, causing
   validation to always miss the file. Claude Code keeps the leading dash in
   the project directory name (-Users-ziggy-nanoclaw-groups-main), fixed.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Sonnet 4.6 <noreply@anthropic.com>

Author: ziggy

CHANGELOG.md

@@ -1,5 +1,11 @@
 # Changelog
 
+## v0.7.5 (2026-04-04) — Heartbeat + session validation path fix
+
+### Fixes
+- **Agent-runner heartbeat** — writes a keepalive marker to stdout every 2 minutes. The container-runner already resets the idle timer on any stdout data, so this prevents false stall timeouts during Task sub-agent waits (which produce no other stdout). The `task_notification` SDK event only fires on completion, not during execution — meaning the stderr-based idle reset in v0.7.4 was insufficient for long Task waits specifically.
+- **Session validation path bug fixed** — the leading slash in the CWD was being stripped when constructing the session file path, causing validation to always miss the file and silently do nothing. Claude Code keeps the leading dash (e.g. `-Users-ziggy-nanoclaw-groups-main`), and the path is now constructed correctly.
+
 ## v0.7.4 (2026-04-04) — Idle timeout architecture fix
 
 ### Fixes

container/agent-runner/src/index.ts

@@ -366,8 +366,11 @@ function isSessionResumable(sessionId: string): boolean {
   if (!configDir || !sessionId) return true;
 
   // Claude Code stores sessions under projects/{sanitized_cwd}/{sessionId}.jsonl
+  // Sanitization: replace all slashes with dashes. The leading slash becomes a
+  // leading dash — do NOT strip it, that's how Claude Code names the directory.
+  // e.g. /Users/ziggy/nanoclaw/groups/main → -Users-ziggy-nanoclaw-groups-main
   const cwd = process.env.GHOSTCLAW_GROUP_DIR || process.cwd();
-  const sanitizedCwd = cwd.replace(/\//g, '-').replace(/^-/, '');
+  const sanitizedCwd = cwd.replace(/\//g, '-');
   const sessionFile = path.join(configDir, 'projects', sanitizedCwd, `${sessionId}.jsonl`);
 
   try {
@@ -593,6 +596,21 @@ async function runQuery(
   return { newSessionId, lastAssistantUuid, closedDuringQuery, resultCount };
 }
 
+const HEARTBEAT_MARKER = '---GHOSTCLAW_HEARTBEAT---';
+const HEARTBEAT_INTERVAL_MS = 2 * 60 * 1000; // 2 minutes
+
+/**
+ * Write a periodic heartbeat to stdout so the container-runner's idle timer
+ * resets during long-running operations (e.g. Task sub-agent waits) that
+ * produce no other stdout. The marker is not an output — container-runner
+ * resets the idle timer on any stdout data before checking for output markers.
+ */
+function startHeartbeat(): NodeJS.Timeout {
+  return setInterval(() => {
+    process.stdout.write(`${HEARTBEAT_MARKER}\n`);
+  }, HEARTBEAT_INTERVAL_MS);
+}
+
 async function main(): Promise<void> {
   let containerInput: ContainerInput;
 
@@ -644,6 +662,10 @@ async function main(): Promise<void> {
     prompt += '\n' + pending.join('\n');
   }
 
+  // Heartbeat: keeps the container-runner's idle timer alive during long-running
+  // operations (Task sub-agent waits, slow tool calls) that produce no stdout.
+  const heartbeat = startHeartbeat();
+
   // Query loop: run query → wait for IPC message → run new query → repeat
   let resumeAt: string | undefined;
   try {
@@ -705,6 +727,7 @@ async function main(): Promise<void> {
       prompt = nextMessage;
     }
   } catch (err) {
+    clearInterval(heartbeat);
     const errorMessage = err instanceof Error ? err.message : String(err);
     log(`Agent error: ${errorMessage}`);
     writeOutput({
@@ -715,6 +738,8 @@ async function main(): Promise<void> {
     });
     process.exit(1);
   }
+
+  clearInterval(heartbeat);
 }
 
 main();

package.json

@@ -1,6 +1,6 @@
 {
   "name": "ghostclaw",
-  "version": "0.7.4",
+  "version": "0.7.5",
   "description": "Personal AI assistant. Bare metal, Telegram-first, no containers.",
   "type": "module",
   "main": "dist/index.js",