Fleet operations

Once you’re running more than a handful of agents, you need to find them, group them, act on them in bulk, and keep a record. These commands cover the fleet-management surface.

Find & filter

warden search auth refactor          # AND-ed full-text over active agents
warden search auth --closed          # include archived agents
warden ls --tag backend --tag urgent # only agents carrying every tag

search matches case-insensitively across each agent’s id, name, ticket, type, subject, prompt, branch, tags, and last-pane excerpt. Tag agents at spawn with warden start --tags backend,urgent (normalized to lowercase, deduped). The web dashboard carries a live search box, and the Cockpit can group the grid by directory, type, status, or tag.

History & archive

Every closed session is persisted to the archive (newest-first):

warden history                    # archived agents, newest first
warden history --since 7d         # 24h / 7d / 2w, a date, or RFC3339
warden history --type development --limit 20

The web dashboard surfaces the same data as a 🗄 Archive tab with since/type selectors and a text filter.

Presets

Save a spawn config once and replay it:

warden preset save backend-dev --type code --tags backend --model opus
warden preset list
warden start --preset backend-dev "implement the rate limiter"   # explicit flags still override

Prompt templates

Where a preset stores reusable flags, a prompt template stores a reusable prompt body with {{VAR}} placeholders. Save one, then fill it in at spawn time:

warden prompt-template save bugfix --prompt "Fix the bug in {{FILE}} described by {{TICKET}}"
warden prompt-template list                       # each template + its variables
warden start --prompt-template bugfix --set FILE=server.go --set TICKET=WARD-42

Variables are auto-derived from the body. Every declared variable must be supplied (a typo’d --set is rejected), and an explicit positional prompt still wins. Templates live in ~/.warden/prompt-templates.yaml, beside presets.yaml. --prompt-template is free-form only (no --type).

The library umbrella

warden library (alias wd lib) is one umbrella over all three reusable launch-config kinds — saved spawn presets, saved prompt templates, and the built-in pipeline templates:

warden library list                            # presets + prompt templates + pipeline templates in labeled sections
warden library save-preset backend-dev --type code --model opus      # delegates to `preset save`
warden library save-prompt bugfix --prompt "Fix {{FILE}}"            # delegates to `prompt-template save`

It adds no new storage — it reuses the preset store, the prompt-template store, and the embedded template catalog (also over MCP as library_list, which returns {presets, prompt_templates, templates}), and warden preset / warden prompt-template / warden pipeline list-templates keep working unchanged.

Batch operations (web)

The Cockpit grid has per-tile checkboxes (with Shift-click range select). While ≥1 agent is selected a floating bar offers bulk Message…, Terminate, and Delete (destructive ones need a second click). Actions fan out one agent at a time and report partial success, keeping failures selected for retry.

Handoff (warden handoff)

warden handoff is the single verb for passing work to another agent, with three modes. Phase 1 — writing the handoff package — is driven by the /warden skill; the verb delivers it:

warden handoff --resume-file notes.md --resume-prompt "take the API layer"   # new delegate (own worktree); source keeps running
warden handoff --to agent-4f2a --resume-file notes.md --resume-prompt "…"    # deliver into a running agent's inbox; source keeps running
warden handoff --retire --confirm --resume-file notes.md --resume-prompt "…" # retire self into a same-worktree successor

The first two modes keep the source running. --retire (requires --confirm) is the self-succession mode — it spawns a successor in the calling agent’s own worktree and reaps the caller, exactly what the warden rotate alias runs (see Self-rotation). --retire and --to are mutually exclusive.

Export / import

Serialize session metadata for backup or migration between machines. Worktrees, branches, and tmux sessions are not serialized and not recreated — an imported record just remembers where its (now absent) worktree used to live.

warden export --all > backup.json     # active + archived records
warden import < backup.json           # idempotent by id (existing ids skipped)
warden import --merge < backup.json   # overwrite colliding records instead

Audit log

The daemon writes an append-only JSON-lines trail to ~/.warden/audit.jsonl (mode 0600) — spawn, terminate, delete, approve, and pipeline start/cancel, each with time, actor, target, and a detail map.

warden audit log                       # recent actions, newest last
warden audit log --tail 100 --action spawn
warden audit log --since 24h --target agent-4f2a --json

warden audit log reads the file directly, so it works even while the daemon is down.