# POST-MORTEM ANALYSIS: AIVA Orchestrator Shutdown
## Date: 2026-01-14 05:38:35 AEST
## Severity: Medium (Service Interruption)

---

## EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

The AIVA Orchestrator (`aiva_orchestrator.py`) performed a **clean shutdown** on January 14, 2026 at 05:38:35 after completing 44 tasks. The shutdown was triggered by a signal (SIGINT/SIGTERM), not a crash. The service did not automatically restart, resulting in ~23 hours of downtime.

---

## TIMELINE

| Time | Event |
|------|-------|
| 05:17:58 | First task started (Build pattern library) |
| 05:38:22 | Last task completed (Create JSON transformer) |
| 05:38:35 | Clean shutdown initiated (`stop()` method called) |
| ~23 hours | Service remained down |

---

## ROOT CAUSE ANALYSIS

### Primary Cause: Signal-Triggered Shutdown
The orchestrator's `stop()` method was called, which logs "Shutting down AIVA Orchestrator..." - this exact message appears in the log. The shutdown was triggered by:

1. **SIGINT or SIGTERM signal** received by the process
2. Signal handler (lines 690-693 in `aiva_orchestrator.py`) called `orchestrator.stop()`

### Contributing Factors

1. **No Process Supervision**: The orchestrator was started with `nohup` but without a process supervisor (systemd, supervisord) to auto-restart on failure.

2. **No Watchdog Recovery**: While the orchestrator has a watchdog component (`self.watchdog.pulse()`), it doesn't have external monitoring to restart the service.

3. **Queue Empty Condition**: The queue had 0 pending tasks at shutdown. While the code correctly continues polling when empty (line 541-542), the external signal terminated the process.

4. **Different from Ralph**: The `ralph_enhanced_orchestrator.py` is still running because it was started with `--max 200` flag and uses different process management.

### Evidence

```
# Last log entries before shutdown:
2026-01-14 05:38:22,046 [INFO] AIVA: ✅ Task 9ed9845823e1 completed by Gemini
2026-01-14 05:38:35,889 [INFO] AIVA: Shutting down AIVA Orchestrator...

# No error messages - clean shutdown
# 13-second gap between last task and shutdown
```

---

## IMPACT ASSESSMENT

| Metric | Impact |
|--------|--------|
| Downtime | ~23 hours |
| Tasks Not Processed | Unknown (queue was empty) |
| Data Loss | None (Redis persists state) |
| Revenue Impact | None (development phase) |

---

## PROCESS COMPARISON

| Component | Status | Start Method | Auto-Restart |
|-----------|--------|--------------|--------------|
| `aiva_orchestrator.py` | STOPPED | nohup | No |
| `aiva_daemon.py` | RUNNING | nohup (Jan 11) | No |
| `ralph_enhanced_orchestrator.py` | RUNNING | venv/python | No |

---

## HARDENING RECOMMENDATIONS

### Immediate (P0)

1. **Implement systemd Service**
   ```ini
   [Unit]
   Description=AIVA Orchestrator
   After=network.target

   [Service]
   Type=simple
   User=authentic88
   WorkingDirectory=/mnt/e/genesis-system/core
   ExecStart=/mnt/e/genesis-system/.venv/bin/python aiva_orchestrator.py start
   Restart=always
   RestartSec=10

   [Install]
   WantedBy=multi-user.target
   ```

2. **Add Health Check Endpoint**
   - HTTP endpoint that monitoring can ping
   - Returns service status and queue depth

3. **External Watchdog**
   - Cron job every 5 minutes to check if orchestrator is running
   - Auto-restart if process not found

### Short-Term (P1)

4. **Graceful Shutdown Handling**
   - On SIGTERM, complete current task before stopping
   - Log reason for shutdown

5. **Queue-Based Persistence**
   - When shutdown detected with empty queue, wait 5 minutes
   - Only shutdown if queue remains empty AND explicit stop requested

6. **Slack Alerting**
   - Alert on shutdown: "AIVA Orchestrator shutting down"
   - Alert on startup: "AIVA Orchestrator online"

### Long-Term (P2)

7. **Process Cluster**
   - Run 2+ orchestrator instances
   - Redis-based leader election

8. **Self-Healing Loop**
   - Genesis system monitors its own components
   - Auto-restart failed services

---

## PREVENTION CHECKLIST

- [ ] Implement systemd service file
- [ ] Add restart=always policy
- [ ] Create health check endpoint
- [ ] Add startup/shutdown Slack alerts
- [ ] Create monitoring cron job
- [ ] Test graceful shutdown behavior
- [ ] Document restart procedures

---

## LESSONS LEARNED

1. **Never run critical services with just `nohup`** - Always use a process supervisor
2. **Empty queue != time to stop** - Services should poll indefinitely
3. **Monitor everything** - If we had monitoring, we'd have known within minutes
4. **Signal handling needs logging** - Log WHY a signal was received, not just that it was

---

## DOCUMENT METADATA

- **Author**: Claude Opus 4.5
- **Reviewed**: Pending
- **Status**: Initial Analysis Complete
- **Next Action**: Restart orchestrator with hardening
