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Meta supervision is the mechanism that keeps SubTurtles moving without constant user prompts.
When the Meta Agent spawns a SubTurtle, it also schedules recurring cron check-ins that inspect progress and only notify on meaningful events. Core behavior is defined in: 
super_turtle/meta/META_SHARED.md
Core implementation paths: 
super_turtle/subturtle/ctl
super_turtle/claude-telegram-bot/src/cron.ts
super_turtle/claude-telegram-bot/src/index.ts
super_turtle/claude-telegram-bot/src/silent-notifications.ts

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How Supervision Is Registered

ctl spawn is the high-level entrypoint. It creates workspace state, starts the worker, and auto-registers a recurring cron job with silent: true. 
./super_turtle/subturtle/ctl spawn docs-agent \
  --type yolo-codex \
  --timeout 1h \
  --state-file /tmp/docs-agent.md \
  --cron-interval 10m
The cron job prompt is pre-seeded to perform supervision actions:
  • Run ctl status <name>
  • Read .subturtles/<name>/CLAUDE.md
  • Review git log --oneline -10
  • Stay silent unless a notable event occurs
Current ctl default supervision interval is 10m (override with --cron-interval or ctl reschedule-cron).

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Silent-First Supervision

Silent check-ins are designed to be invisible during normal progress.
1

Cron job wakes up

The bot checks due jobs every 10 seconds and executes the recurring SubTurtle job when fire_at is reached.
2

Meta Agent performs supervision work

It runs the status/state/log checks and decides whether there is meaningful news.
3

Marker-gated forwarding

For silent jobs, Telegram receives output only if the response includes a notable marker (🎉, ⚠️, ❌, 🚀, 🔔).
4

No news means no message

If no marker is present, nothing is sent to the user.
The marker filter is implemented in getSilentNotificationText(...): 
const SILENT_NOTIFICATION_MARKERS = ["🎉", "⚠️", "⚠", "❌", "🚀", "🔔"] as const;

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Notification Triggers

Only these event classes should break silence:

🎉 Finished

All backlog items are complete. Stop the SubTurtle, summarize what shipped, and state what starts next.

📍 Milestone

Significant progress checkpoint reached (for example major backlog completion or first working slice).

⚠️ Stuck

No meaningful movement across multiple check-ins, repeated retries, or clear off-track behavior.

❌ Error

Crash or hard failure blocking autonomous progress.
Optional notable update:
  • 🔗 Preview when a new .tunnel-url appears for frontend work.

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Notification Templates

Use concise, structured messages: 
🚀 Started: <name>
Working on: <task description>
Mode: <yolo-codex|yolo-codex-spark|yolo|slow> | Timeout: <duration>

🎉 Finished: <name>
✓ <item 1>
✓ <item 2>
✓ <item 3>
Next: <what starts next, or "Roadmap complete">

⚠️ Stuck: <name>
No progress for <N> check-ins.
Last activity: <description>
Action: <stop/restart/needs input>

❌ Error: <name>
<error description>
Action: <what meta agent did>

📍 Milestone: <name>
<N>/<total> backlog items complete.
Latest: <what just shipped>

🔗 Preview: <name>
<url>

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Progressing to the Next Task

When a SubTurtle finishes and the roadmap still has pending work:
1

Stop completed worker

./super_turtle/subturtle/ctl stop <name>
This also removes that SubTurtle’s recurring cron supervision job.
2

Advance project state

Update root CLAUDE.md: mark completed items and move current focus to the next backlog item.
3

Seed next SubTurtle state

Write a fresh .subturtles/&lt;name&gt;/CLAUDE.md for the next focused chunk.
4

Spawn next run

Start a new ctl spawn run; supervision is auto-registered again.
This is the autonomous conveyor belt model: spawn -> supervise silently -> notify on real news -> stop -> advance state -> respawn until roadmap completion.

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Failure Handling

If a cron execution itself fails, the bot sends a direct failure message and does not retry that fire: 
❌ Scheduled job failed (<job-id>).
<error summary>
This prevents hidden supervision failures while still avoiding noisy retries.