Helpers

Helpers

Open /console and choose Helpers, or run bitcadence helpers in a terminal. Both show the same thing: each helper's friendly name, a health light with a word, and what it is doing in plain words.

The light and the word

Light	Word	Meaning
● green	Working	It has a job right now.
● green	Ready	It is connected and waiting for a job.
▲ red	Stuck	Something needs fixing (see Fix it).
○ grey	Not connected	No sign of life.
○ grey	Paused	Turned off on purpose.

Colour is never the only signal: every light has a shape and its word. A name like claude-worker_3 is shown as "Claude worker 3". Each card also says when the helper was last heard from. Tokens and credentials are never on this page.

Add a helper

+ Add a helper asks which AI should power it (Claude, ChatGPT / Codex, Gemini / Antigravity) and a name. It uses the same code as bitcadence helpers add: the helper is registered and its sign-in is saved on this computer. The page confirms "Penny is added" and never shows the sign-in; the terminal shows it only masked, as mco_tok_...1a2b. An existing helper's name is refused instead of silently replacing its sign-in.

bitcadence helpers add --name penny --role codex

Fix it

Two problems look fine from outside, so BitCadence checks for them:

• A locked notes file. Another BitCadence process has the helper's <name>.log open, so it cannot save its notes. The light turns red even though the helper looks online.
• Two copies running. More than one wake process is watching the same helper. The oldest copy stays; the extras are stopped.

Fix it looks first and changes nothing: it lists what it found and what it would do. Only after you answer Yes, fix it (in a terminal, Y) does it stop the extra copy. Without an answer, nothing is stopped. A program that is not BitCadence is never stopped; you are told to close it yourself.

bitcadence helpers fix
bitcadence fix

--yes skips the question for scripts. In the gateway API, POST /api/helpers/fix is a dry run unless the body has "confirm": true.

Checking for these problems reads the list of running programs on this computer only. It does not change anything, and a program it is not allowed to inspect is skipped.