Activity Feed Fixes: Job Type and Duration Display

Session Date: 2025-12-24
Project: AlephAuto - Job Queue Dashboard
Focus: Fix activity feed displaying incorrect job type and duration information
Session Type: Bug Fix and Production Deployment

Executive Summary

Fixed two critical bugs in the AlephAuto dashboard activity feed where job events were displaying “unknown” for job types and “unknown duration” for completed jobs. The root cause was twofold: job creation calls weren’t including the pipeline type in job data, and the activity feed wasn’t calculating duration from job timestamps.

Both fixes were implemented, tested locally with live job triggers, deployed to production via PM2, and verified working correctly. The dashboard now displays accurate pipeline names (e.g., “claude-health”, “git-activity”) and precise duration times (e.g., “0.15s”, “0.46s”).

Key Metrics:

Metric Value
Bugs Fixed 2
Files Modified 4
Commits Pushed 3
Pipelines Verified 2 (claude-health, git-activity)
Production Deployment Successful
Breaking Changes 0

Problem Statement

Bug 1: Unknown Job Type

The activity feed was displaying “unknown” for all job types instead of the actual pipeline name.

Before:

Job job-123 completed successfully (unknown duration)
jobType: "unknown"

Root Cause: The triggerPipelineJob() function in api/routes/pipelines.js wasn’t including the type field when creating jobs.

Bug 2: Unknown Duration

Completed job messages showed “unknown duration” instead of actual elapsed time.

Before:

Job job-123 completed successfully (unknown duration)

Root Cause: The activity feed in api/activity-feed.js only checked for job.result?.duration_seconds, which wasn’t being set. The job’s startedAt and completedAt timestamps were available but not being used.

Implementation Details

Fix 1: Job Type Propagation

File: api/routes/pipelines.js

Added type: pipelineId to all job creation calls in triggerPipelineJob():

// Generic job creation for other pipelines
if (typeof pipelineWorker.createJob === 'function') {
    pipelineWorker.createJob(jobId, {
        type: pipelineId,  // <-- Added this line
        ...parameters,
        triggeredBy: 'api',
        triggeredAt: new Date().toISOString()
    });
}

This was applied to:

  • Schema-enhancement single file mode
  • Generic createJob calls
  • scheduleJob fallback
  • addJob fallback
  • Direct emit fallback

Fix 2: Duration Calculation from Timestamps

File: api/activity-feed.js:192-214

Added timestamp-based duration calculation in the job:completed event handler:

worker.on('job:completed', (job) => {
  try {
    // Calculate duration from timestamps, fallback to result.duration_seconds
    let durationSeconds = job.result?.duration_seconds;
    if (!durationSeconds && job.startedAt && job.completedAt) {
      const startTime = job.startedAt instanceof Date
        ? job.startedAt
        : new Date(job.startedAt);
      const endTime = job.completedAt instanceof Date
        ? job.completedAt
        : new Date(job.completedAt);
      durationSeconds = (endTime.getTime() - startTime.getTime()) / 1000;
    }

    const duration = durationSeconds != null
      ? `${durationSeconds.toFixed(2)}s`
      : 'unknown duration';

    this.addActivity({
      type: 'job:completed',
      message: `Job ${job.id} completed successfully (${duration})`,
      jobType: job.data?.type || 'unknown',
      duration: durationSeconds,
      // ...
    });
  }
});

Design Decisions:

  • Fallback chain: result.duration_seconds → calculated from timestamps → “unknown duration”
  • Handle both Date objects and ISO strings for timestamps
  • Store numeric duration for potential future analytics

Before/After Comparison

Aspect Before After
Job Type Display “unknown” “claude-health”, “git-activity”, etc.
Duration Display “unknown duration” “0.15s”, “0.46s”, etc.
Activity Message Job X completed (unknown duration) Job X completed successfully (0.15s)

Testing and Verification

Direct Node.js Test

// Simulate job with timestamps
const mockJob = {
  id: 'test-123',
  data: { type: 'git-activity' },
  startedAt: new Date(Date.now() - 5000),
  completedAt: new Date()
};

// Result
Activity message: Job test-123 completed successfully (5.00s)
Activity jobType: git-activity
Activity duration: 5

--- Verification ---
Job type correct: ✅
Duration calculated: ✅

Production Verification

Pipeline Job Type Duration Status
claude-health “claude-health” 0.15s ✅ PASS
claude-health “claude-health” 0.17s ✅ PASS
claude-health “claude-health” 0.18s ✅ PASS
git-activity “git-activity” 0.43s ✅ PASS
git-activity “git-activity” 0.46s ✅ PASS

API Response Verification

{
  "type": "job:completed",
  "jobType": "claude-health",
  "message": "Job claude-health-manual-1766627468956 completed successfully (0.18s)"
}

Deployment

PM2 Update Required

The PM2 daemon was out of date and causing module resolution errors:

Error: Cannot find module '/Users/.../code-env/node/lib/node_modules/pm2/lib/ProcessContainerFork.js'

Solution: Run npx pm2 update to refresh the daemon.

Deployment Steps

npx pm2 update

# 2. Verify processes online
npx pm2 list
# aleph-dashboard: online

curl -X POST http://localhost:8080/api/pipelines/claude-health/trigger \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" -d '{}'

npx pm2 save

Production Status

Process Status PID Uptime
aleph-dashboard online 30847 3m
aleph-worker online 30857 3m

Files Modified

Modified Files (4)

File Changes Purpose
api/routes/pipelines.js +5 lines Add type field to job creation
api/activity-feed.js +15 lines Calculate duration from timestamps
api/utils/worker-registry.js +10 lines Add setActivityFeed() method
api/server.js +3 lines Connect WorkerRegistry to ActivityFeed

Frontend (Gitignored)

  • frontend/src/hooks/useWebSocketConnection.ts - Map jobType to pipelineId/pipelineName

Git Commits

Commit Description
aea4fdf fix(activity): calculate job duration from timestamps
93f05e3 fix(activity): include pipeline type in job data for activity feed
efcc6a5 fix(api): connect worker registry to activity feed for websocket broadcasts

Key Decisions

Decision 1: Timestamp-Based Duration Calculation

Choice: Calculate duration from startedAt/completedAt timestamps Rationale: These timestamps are always available on completed jobs, unlike result.duration_seconds Alternative Considered: Requiring all workers to set result.duration_seconds Trade-off: Slight calculation overhead vs. no worker changes required

Decision 2: Fallback Chain for Duration

Choice: result.duration_seconds → timestamps → “unknown duration” Rationale: Maintains backward compatibility with workers that do set duration Trade-off: Multiple code paths vs. robustness

WebSocket Real-Time Updates

The fixes integrate with the existing WebSocket infrastructure:

ActivityFeedManager.addActivity()
  → broadcaster.broadcast({ type: 'activity:new', ... })
    → WebSocket clients receive real-time updates
      → Dashboard displays correct job type and duration

References

Code Files

  • api/routes/pipelines.js:triggerPipelineJob() - Job type propagation
  • api/activity-feed.js:192-214 - Duration calculation
  • api/utils/worker-registry.js:setActivityFeed() - ActivityFeed connection
  • sidequest/core/server.js - SidequestServer job lifecycle events
  • frontend/src/services/websocket.ts - WebSocket client
  • frontend/src/hooks/useWebSocketConnection.ts - React hook for dashboard

Documentation

  • docs/API_REFERENCE.md - REST API endpoints
  • docs/architecture/ERROR_HANDLING.md - Error handling patterns