Troubleshooting
Start with the exit code
Section titled “Start with the exit code”hive ctl failures carry structured codes (full table in CLI): 2 usage,
3 app not running, 4 timeout, 5 not found, 6 unauthorized, 7 refused/unsupported.
Tracker
Section titled “Tracker”no .hivemind/ found— runhive init --prefix XXin the repo (or a parent of your cwd owns one;find .. -name .hivemindto check)..hivemind/ already exists— init refuses to clobber; use the tracker, or barehive initto refresh the agentic stack.- Prefix rejected — must match
^[A-Z][A-Z0-9]{1,9}$(e.g.MYP). moverefused — the issue still has sub-issues; re-parent them (hive link <child> --parent none) or use--copy.- Cross-repo id unresolved — register the other workspace
(
hive workspace register) and confirm withhive workspace list.
App and canvas
Section titled “App and canvas”- Exit 3 on canvas verbs — the app is not running:
hivemind .. Issue verbs work without it; spawn/read/list do not. - Agent not spawnable — run
hive agent detectin the workspace; install the CLI if missing. Distinguish spawnable runtimes from recognised-for-status ones (Agents). - Terminal empty after reboot — runtimes without resume (opencode) start fresh; others resume per their provider. Screen content replays from disk after a daemon restart either way.
- Remote terminals ended — remote PTYs run in the app process; an SSH drop ends them and there is no remote daemon to reattach. Reopen the tile; use a local worktree when you need sessions to outlive connections.
- Browser page reloaded after a view switch — known
<webview>limit; tabs and history survive, scroll/form state does not. - Agent cannot browse — enable agent browser control in Settings, open a Browser
tile, retry; the
hive-browserskill reports what is missing. - View missing or disabled — check Settings → Plugins → Installed for runtime load errors and
hive views listfor package errors. A plugin that violated its budget stays disabled until the app restarts.
Timeouts
Section titled “Timeouts”hive ctl readwaits 100 s by default in ≤ 10 s slices; keep the total under your tool’s timeout. Exit 4 means the turn had not finished — call again to collect it.hive ctl workflow --timeoutis per worker (default 600 000 ms); give the calling tool a timeout longer than the slowest worker.hive ctl open-review --timeoutdefaults to a 24 h ceiling; set an explicit value when calling from an agent.
Upgrades
Section titled “Upgrades”hive upgrade # re-run the installer (no-op when current)hive upgrade --dev # source install: git pull + rebuildAfter upgrading, refresh workspace skills with hive add skill.
Environment quirks
Section titled “Environment quirks”- Dev-bridge needs tsx (node), not bun — bun drops
@lydell/node-ptyoutput on Linux. - Playwright/e2e:
unset ELECTRON_RUN_AS_NODE, run under xvfb; the config isolates the profile. HIVEMIND_SHELL_ENV=0makes tiles inherit the app environment verbatim.
State is files: cat the issue, hive config get, hive views list. Fixes go through
Contributing.