add timestamps to thirdshift stderr output to see if stalled #153

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1. JacobStephens2

   added

   enhancementNew feature or requestNew feature or request

   ready-for-agentFully specified, ready for an AFK agentFully specified, ready for an AFK agent

   on Sep 30, 2026
2. JacobStephens2 commented on Sep 30, 2026

   

   JacobStephens2

   on Sep 30, 2026

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   This was generated by AI during triage.

   Agent Brief

   Category: enhancement
   Summary: Every thirdshift stderr line carries the local time, so a user can tell a stalled Run from a busy one

   Current behavior:
   thirdshift's progress lines on stderr have no times. That covers its own steps ("pushing issue-148", "CI on 26c8b06: 2 of 5 checks still running") and the one-line summaries of a session's events ("implement: $ cargo test …"). When the terminal goes quiet, the user can't tell whether the last line came a minute ago or twenty. They end up opening the session log or checking ps to find out if the Run is stalled. This came up for real on 2026-09-30: a #148 session's test suite ran for more than ten minutes behind a single progress line.

   Desired behavior:
   Each line thirdshift writes to stderr starts with the local wall-clock time (HH:MM:SS) right after the thirdshift: prefix:

   thirdshift: 12:14:49 implement: $ cargo test 2>&1 | tail -40
   thirdshift: 12:25:03 CI on 26c8b06: 2 of 5 checks still running
   

   This covers thirdshift's own steps and the condensed session lines. In a Spec run, a Ticket's child thirdshift already stamps its own lines, so its relayed lines are not stamped a second time.

   Key interfaces:

   • The single function that prints thirdshift's own steps, and the path that prints a session's condensed lines: both go through the new stamp
   • The relay of a Ticket's Run stderr in a Spec run: it keeps the child's stamp and doesn't add one
   • Tests that assert on exact stderr lines: they need a way to match with the time removed or ignored (e.g. a helper that strips the stamp), not a fixed clock baked into the binary's behavior

   Acceptance criteria:

   • Every stderr line thirdshift prints during a Run, whether its own step or a condensed session line, has the form thirdshift: HH:MM:SS <message> in local time
   • In a Spec run, each relayed Ticket line has exactly one timestamp
   • Lines printed after the terminal has closed still fail silently, as they do now
   • The Run notification, the Failed run comment, the PR body and session logs are unchanged
   • The existing stderr assertions in the test suite pass, adjusted to ignore the time

   Out of scope:

   • Heartbeat or "still running" lines during long, silent tool calls
   • Showing elapsed time per step or total Run time on stderr (show time run too in stderr output near end of run before the PR line perhaps #51)
   • A flag or config setting to turn timestamps off
   • Dates or time zones in the stamp
3. JacobStephens2

   linked a pull request that will close this issueStamp each stderr line with the local time #185on Sep 30, 2026
4. JacobStephens2

   closed this as completedon Sep 30, 2026