Collab Troubleshooting

“Agents spawn but no output / Not logged in / DNS errors”

Recurring root cause (observed 2026-05-04, 2026-05-06, 2026-05-08): The ensemble service inherits the env of the shell that started it. If you start tsx server.ts from a shell that lacks credentials (no recent claude login, no codex login, missing PATH entries), every agent spawned afterward inherits that broken env.

Symptoms in the agent panes:

  • Claude: Not logged in · Please run /login
  • Codex: stream disconnected before completion: failed to lookup address information

Fix 

pkill -f 'tsx server.ts'
cd ~/Documents/ensemble && nohup ./node_modules/.bin/tsx server.ts > /tmp/ensemble-server.log 2>&1 &

Then re-run /collab from the same shell where claude --print "ok" and codex login status both succeed.

Why the preflight catches it

scripts/collab-preflight.sh runs before every team spawn:

  1. Service health check
  2. Service age (>24h = likely stale env, fail loud)
  3. DNS resolve api.openai.com + api.anthropic.com
  4. codex login status returns “Logged in”
  5. claude --print "respond pong" returns non-empty within 15s

Why the postcheck catches it

scripts/collab-postcheck.sh runs 30s after spawn (background):

  • Captures all agent tmux panes
  • Greps for “Not logged in”, “stream disconnected”, “401 Unauthorized”
  • If any match: kills team, prints diagnosis + suggested fix

Bypass for advanced users

  • COLLAB_SKIP_PREFLIGHT=1 — skip preflight (NOT recommended)
  • COLLAB_SKIP_POSTCHECK=1 — skip postcheck
  • COLLAB_SERVICE_MAX_AGE=48 — allow older service (default 24h)