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Overview

The Live Logs feature streams the runner log directly to your browser using server-sent events (SSE). Each agent’s logs are filterable from its detail page. Logs capture everything the runner produces for a given agent: startup events, incoming Slack messages, AI backend calls, MCP tool invocations, memory writes, and errors.

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Accessing logs

  1. Open an agent from the dashboard
  2. Click the Logs tab on the agent detail page
Logs begin streaming immediately. New log lines appear in real time as the agent processes messages.

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Log levels

SlackHive uses structured logging (Winston) with four levels:
LevelColorWhen it appears
errorRedUnrecoverable failures: Slack auth errors, AI backend exceptions, DB connection failures
warnYellowRecoverable issues: stale session retries, MCP server startup failures, malformed memory files
infoDefaultNormal operation: agent started, message received, memory synced, session created
debugDimmedVerbose detail: SDK options, session directory paths, MCP server config
Use the level filter in the log viewer to show only the levels you care about. In production, info and above is usually sufficient. Enable debug when diagnosing unexpected behavior. The log viewer includes a search bar. Type any string to filter log lines to those containing that text. Useful for finding:
  • Log lines for a specific user ID (U012AB3CD)
  • Log lines for a specific session (session_key)
  • All memory sync events (memory synced)
  • All MCP-related activity (mcp__)

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What you’ll see in logs

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Agent startup

[info] Agent started { mcpServers: ['redshift', 'filesystem'] }
[info] Memory watcher started { memoryDir: '~/.slackhive/agents/data-bot/memory' }
[debug] MCP servers configured { servers: ['redshift'] }

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Incoming message

[info] Streaming query { sessionKey: 'U012-C456-1234.5678', resume: 'new', cwd: '...' }
[debug] Session work dir created { sessionKey: '...', sessionDir: '...' }
[debug] Session created { sessionKey: '...', sessionId: 'sess_...' }

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Memory write

[info] Memory synced to DB { filePath: '...', name: 'kai_preferences', type: 'user' }
[info] Memory synced from session { file: 'user_kai_preferences.md', name: 'kai_preferences', type: 'user' }

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MCP tool use

MCP tool invocations are rendered in the Slack response as tool-use labels. In logs, you’ll see the MCP proxy management: 
[info] MCP proxy started { server: 'redshift', port: 14050 }

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Session cleanup

[info] Cleaned up stale sessions { count: 2 }

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Errors

[error] AI backend query failed { sessionKey: '...', backend: 'codex', error: 'No conversation found' }
[warn] Stale session, retrying as new { sessionKey: '...', staleSessionId: 'sess_...' }
[error] MCP proxy start failed { server: 'broken-mcp', error: 'Command not found' }

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Debugging common issues

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Agent not responding in Slack

Check for:
  • [error] lines mentioning Slack token or connection errors
  • [warn] lines about missing or invalid credentials
  • Whether the agent shows Running status in the dashboard

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MCP tools not working

Check for:
  • [error] MCP proxy start failed - the server binary is not found or not executable
  • [warn] MCP envRef not found - the referenced env var key doesn’t exist in the encrypted store
  • [warn] Memory dir watcher error - filesystem permission issues

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Memory not persisting

Check for:
  • [warn] Could not parse memory file - the agent wrote a memory file with invalid frontmatter
  • Absence of [info] Memory synced to DB lines - the watcher may not have detected the file

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Stale session errors

Stale sessions can occur after a runner restart or backend session interruption. SlackHive retries automatically as a new session. You’ll see: 
[warn] Stale session, retrying as new
This is normal after restarts and resolves itself automatically.

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Tailing logs from the CLI

For shell access to runner logs, use the CLI: 
slackhive logs
This tails ~/.slackhive/logs/runner.log live. Ctrl-C to stop. To print without following: 
tail -n 100 ~/.slackhive/logs/runner.log
To filter to a single agent, each log line is JSON - pipe through grep: 
slackhive logs | grep '"agent":"data-bot"'