Inngest Monitor Pi Extension

Context

The joelclaw system has ~30 Inngest functions handling video ingest, memory compaction, email triage, friction analysis, heartbeat checks, and more. Today, firing an event and monitoring its lifecycle requires switching to a terminal and running joelclaw send, joelclaw runs, joelclaw run <id> — context-switching that breaks flow.

Pi extensions for background work (codex-exec, ralph-loop, session-reader, inbox-watcher) all converged on a consistent UX pattern in ADR-0061: persistent widget for live status, display: false messages for model context, batch turn triggering. But none of these talk to Inngest directly — they spawn local processes or dispatch fire-and-forget events.

The gap: no pi extension lets you fire an Inngest event and watch its run lifecycle (which function triggered, which steps completed, success/failure) without leaving the session.

Decision

Create @joelclaw/pi-extensions package in the joelclaw monorepo (packages/pi-extensions/) containing joelclaw-specific pi extensions, starting with inngest-monitor.

inngest-monitor

A pi extension that sends Inngest events and monitors run lifecycle via the Inngest GQL API (localhost:8288/v0/gql).

Tools:

• inngest_send — fire an event, optionally monitor the resulting runs
• inngest_runs — detailed run inspection with step traces

Monitoring mechanism: GQL polling (not Redis pub/sub). The Inngest GQL API exposes run status and step traces for ALL functions — no gateway middleware dependency. Poll every 3s for run status + runTrace step tree until terminal state.

UX: Same widget pattern as codex-exec et al:

• Persistent widget shows running/recent events with step progress
• display: false messages deliver results to model silently
• triggerTurn on completion/failure, batched when multiple runs active
• Compact renderCall/renderResult on both tools
• Message renderer for inngest-run-complete type

GQL queries used

# Run status
{ run(runID: "...") { id status functionID startedAt endedAt output } }
 
# Step trace (live progress)
{ runTrace(runID: "...") { name status duration isRoot childrenSpans { name status duration childrenSpans { name status duration } } } }
 
# Function name resolution (cached)
{ functions { id name } }
 
# Error details (on failure)
{ runTraceSpanOutputByID(outputID: "...") { data error { message name stack } } }

Package structure

packages/pi-extensions/
  package.json          # @joelclaw/pi-extensions
  tsconfig.json
  inngest-monitor/
    index.ts            # pi extension
    DESIGN.md           # detailed design reference

Consequences

• Agents can fire Inngest events and see results without context-switching
• Run progress visible at a glance in the widget (step names, completion %)
• Model gets run results automatically for follow-up actions
• No Redis dependency — works purely via Inngest’s GQL API
• Joelclaw-specific extensions separated from generic pi-tools
• New extensions (e.g. function browser, event history) can be added to the same package