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”).

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

# 1. Update PM2 daemon
npx pm2 update

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

# 3. Test with live job
curl -X POST http://localhost:8080/api/pipelines/claude-health/trigger \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" -d '{}'

# 4. Save PM2 state
npx pm2 save
# Saved to /Users/alyshialedlie/.pm2/dump.pm2

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

activity-feed, nodejs, pm2, production-deployment, real-time, typescript, websocket

bug-fixes, dashboard, websocket

was published on December 24, 2025.

Activity Feed Fixes: Job Type and Duration Display

Activity Feed Fixes: Job Type and Duration Display

Executive Summary

Problem Statement

Bug 1: Unknown Job Type

Bug 2: Unknown Duration

Implementation Details

Fix 1: Job Type Propagation

Fix 2: Duration Calculation from Timestamps

Before/After Comparison

Testing and Verification

Direct Node.js Test

Production Verification

API Response Verification

Deployment

PM2 Update Required

Deployment Steps

Production Status

Files Modified

Modified Files (4)

Frontend (Gitignored)

Git Commits

Key Decisions

Decision 1: Timestamp-Based Duration Calculation

Decision 2: Fallback Chain for Duration

WebSocket Real-Time Updates

References

Code Files

Related Systems

Documentation