Session Report — Brain render on a schedule

2026-07-16 · repo C:/Users/valte/Code/valter · branch main

Summary

Continuing the "AI Dev Brain" thread, this session answered one request: can the Gource brain render run on a schedule and stay current on the dashboard? It now does. Two changes landed: (1) brain.sh was upgraded from a hardcoded 2-repo list to auto-discover every git repo under the root (pruning the 500k-file repos/ mirror + work/), plus a windowless logs mode; and (2) a Windows scheduled task (AI-Dev-Brain-Render) now re-renders brain.mp4 daily at 06:20 and rebuilds the CEO dashboard, whose hero video gained a "rendered <time>" freshness stamp. The full chain was tested end-to-end — and the strongest proof is that the task fired unattended at 06:20 today and rendered cleanly.

Scope note (read this before the file lists). Many Claude sessions share this working tree. This session's work is entirely under tools/gource/ + one reports/build_dashboard.py edit. The large git status (backlog.yaml +371 lines, ~30 new TASK-000xx folders, content-agency, fleet CI/CD, serena-reaper, brain-live, ai-research digests) belongs to other concurrent sessions and is not this session's output. The recency-picked transcript (a /implement content-agency run) is likewise a different session.

Timeline

  1. Asked whether the brain render could run on a schedule and stay fresh on the dashboard.
  2. Checked the ground truth: the existing AI-Research-Daily-Study Task Scheduler job (the pattern to mirror), how build_dashboard.py embeds the brain, and the headless-OpenGL constraint.
  3. Found build_dashboard.py already embeds brain.mp4 as the dashboard's hero <video> — so "keep it fresh" = re-render in place + add a freshness stamp.
  4. Wrote refresh-brain.sh (render → rebuild dashboard; render failure non-fatal) and run-brain.cmd (Task Scheduler launcher, mirrors the ai-research one).
  5. Added a "rendered <time>" stamp to render_brain() in build_dashboard.py and corrected its caption to "every repo under the root".
  6. Registered AI-Dev-Brain-Render — daily 06:20, interactive-only (so Gource gets a desktop + GPU), StartWhenAvailable=true (catches missed overnight runs at next logon).
  7. Verified plumbing headlessly (login-shell PATH has ffmpeg + python; logs mode; dashboard rebuild), then ran the full render test twice: the automatic 06:20 run and a manual schtasks /run — both logged brain: render okdashboard rebuiltdone; task Last Result: 0.

Artifacts produced

All under tools/gource/, which the root .gitignore /* allowlist hides from git. Source scripts (created earlier this session) are pointed to on disk; the out/ + state/ files were regenerated within the mtime window by the scheduled runs and appear in the mtime scan.

FileWhat it is
tools/gource/refresh-brain.sh The scheduled-refresh wrapper: re-render brain.mp4 across all repos, then run build_dashboard.py. Render failure is non-fatal (dashboard still rebuilds on the last good render); BRAIN_MODE=logs for a headless test.
tools/gource/run-brain.cmd Task Scheduler launcher (mirrors tools/ai-research/run-daily.cmd): invokes Git bash on the wrapper, appends to state/scheduler.log.
tools/gource/state/scheduler.log Run log — proves both the 06:20 automatic run and the manual trigger completed (brain: render okdashboard rebuiltbrain refresh: done).
tools/gource/out/brain.mp4 The re-rendered animation — now 14.99 MB (up from 7.1 MB), a richer clip fusing all 4 repos.
tools/gource/out/combined.log Merged, time-sorted Gource log across all discovered repos (~644 events). Plus per-repo workspace.log, wiki.log, remotion-video.log, tools_vscode-extensions_automax-terminal.log.

Files edited

FileChange
tools/gource/brain.shRewrote the repo list into auto-discovery of every git repo under the root (pruning repos//work//tmp/ before descending; empty repos skipped); added a windowless logs mode. (gitignored; on disk)
reports/build_dashboard.pyrender_brain() now emits a "rendered <time>" freshness stamp (from brain.mp4 mtime) and a corrected "every repo under the root" caption. (gitignored; on disk)

Not this session: the modified/untracked entries in git status (backlog.yaml, adr/debt indexes, TASK-00010/00016/00019, ADR 0003, and the TASK-00020…00056 folders) are concurrent sessions' work (content-agency, fleet CI/CD, brain-live, etc.), listed nowhere here as mine.

Key decisions

Tasks

adb was available, but this session created/moved no tickets — the scheduled render is local tooling, not ticketed work. (TASK-00028, the live interactive brain, is a related but separate concurrent effort.)

Board at report time: 14 IN_PROGRESS, 2 BLOCKED, 28 BACKLOG, 10 DONE, 2 ARCHIVED — reflecting heavy concurrent-session activity, not this session.

Sources & caveats

Fact sources used this run: git status/diff mtime scan (480 min) adb task status on-disk file checks Task Scheduler query transcript — DIFFERENT session (recency mismatch) gstack timeline (stale, 3 days old).

This session's source scripts predate the 8-hour mtime window, so they were verified by direct ls on disk rather than the scan; their runtime outputs (brain.mp4, combined.log, scheduler.log) do fall in the window and confirm the scheduled runs. The recency-picked transcript is another session's /implement run and was disregarded.

Recap reflects available context + git facts; a long/compacted session may omit earlier steps. File lists are derived from git + the mtime scan + on-disk checks, not memory.