Skills project-manager-agent

Monitors active sub-agents, detects stalls, provides status updates, and steers stuck agents via sessions_send.

install

source · Clone the upstream repo

git clone https://github.com/openclaw/skills

Claude Code · Install into ~/.claude/skills/

T=$(mktemp -d) && git clone --depth=1 https://github.com/openclaw/skills "$T" && mkdir -p ~/.claude/skills && cp -r "$T/skills/austindixson/project-manager-agent" ~/.claude/skills/clawdbot-skills-project-manager-agent && rm -rf "$T"

manifest: skills/austindixson/project-manager-agent/SKILL.md

source content

Project Manager Agent

Description

Monitors active sub-agents, detects stalls, provides status updates, and steers stuck agents via sessions_send.

Project Manager Agent

This skill provides oversight for your OpenClaw sub-agents. It proactively checks the status of running sub-agents, identifies potential stalls or failures, and can steer stalled sub-agents by sending a continue message via the sessions_send tool.

Usage

Running the monitor

python3 <skill-dir>/scripts/project_manager.py

Options

```
--staleness_threshold_minutes <int>
```
: Minutes after which a sub-agent is considered stalled (default from config or 10).
```
--check_all_sessions
```
: Check all sessions, not just subagents of the current main session.
```
--json
```
: Print human summary then a JSON line with
```
stalledSessionKeys
```
,
```
steerMessage
```
, and
```
summary
```
for agent steering.
```
--no_cooldown
```
: Output all stalled keys (ignore 15-minute cooldown).
```
--record-steered KEY [KEY ...]
```
: Record these session keys as just steered (for cooldown). Run after calling sessions_send.

Example (Status check, human-only)

python3 /Users/ghost/.openclaw/workspace/skills/project-manager-agent/scripts/project_manager.py --staleness_threshold_minutes 15

Example (Agent run with steering)

python3 /Users/ghost/.openclaw/workspace/skills/project-manager-agent/scripts/project_manager.py --json --staleness_threshold_minutes 10

Then parse the last line (JSON), call sessions_send for each key in

stalledSessionKeys

, and optionally run

--record-steered <keys>

Features

Sub-agent Monitoring: Lists all active sub-agents (file-based; no gateway API in the script).
Stall Detection: Flags sub-agents that haven't updated their status within a configurable time period.
Failure Identification: Reports on sub-agents that have aborted their last run.
Status Reports: Human-readable summaries and optional JSON with
```
stalledSessionKeys
```
for steering.
Automated Steering: When you run the skill with
```
--json
```
, parse the output and call sessions_send for each stalled session (see Agent instructions below).

Agent instructions (mandatory when running this skill)

When the user or a cron asks you to run the project-manager-agent skill:

Run the script with
--json
(and existing args as needed):

python3 /Users/ghost/.openclaw/workspace/skills/project-manager-agent/scripts/project_manager.py --json --staleness_threshold_minutes 10

Parse the script stdout: The last line is a single JSON object with
```
stalledSessionKeys
```
,
```
steerMessage
```
, and
```
summary
```
. Parse it (e.g. take the last line that starts with
```
{
```
and ends with
```
}
```
).

If
stalledSessionKeys
is non-empty:

For each session key in
```
stalledSessionKeys
```
(cap at 5 per run to avoid spam), call sessions_send(
```
sessionKey
```
,
```
steerMessage
```
from JSON or
```
"Please continue working on your task."
```
,
```
0
```
) (fire-and-forget;
```
timeoutSeconds=0
```
).

Optionally run the script again to record cooldown so the same session is not steered again for 15 minutes:

python3 /Users/ghost/.openclaw/workspace/skills/project-manager-agent/scripts/project_manager.py --record-steered <key1> <key2> ...

Reply to the user/cron with the status summary (the human-readable part of the script output) and, if you steered any, add: "Steered N stalled subagent(s)."

You have access to sessions_list and sessions_send; the script only produces the list of session keys to steer. Steering is done by you in the same turn via the sessions_send tool.

Config (optional)

See

config.json

for:

staleness_threshold_minutes

steer_cooldown_minutes

steer_message

max_steer_per_run

Integration as a Cron Job

This skill is ideal for a cron job, running periodically (e.g., every 5 minutes). The agent runs the script with

--json

, steers stalled subagents via sessions_send, and announces the status.

Example Cron Job Payload:

{
  "payload": {
    "kind": "agentTurn",
    "message": "Run project-manager-agent skill and report status of all sub-agents.",
    "model": "openrouter/google/gemini-2.5-flash",
    "thinking": "low",
    "timeoutSeconds": 60
  },
  "schedule": {
    "kind": "every",
    "everyMs": 300000
  },
  "delivery": {
    "mode": "announce"
  },
  "sessionTarget": "isolated",
  "name": "Project Manager (Sub-agent Monitor)"
}

version: 0.2.0