Windows Electron orchestrator spawn has zellij first-run failure and docs drift

[somewherelostt]

Summary

On Windows, after installing the required zellij runtime, the Electron app can start the daemon successfully, but the first orchestrator spawn may fail after a long delay with a Zellij "There is no active session!" error. A subsequent spawn can succeed.

This also exposed docs drift: the frontend platform docs recommend runtime: process for Windows, but the current Go rewrite appears to wire only the Zellij runtime.

Reported by @somewherelostt.

Environment

• OS: Windows
• Repo: aoagents/ReverbCode
• Frontend command: cd frontend && npm run dev
• Node: v24.12.0
• npm: 10.9.1
• Go on PATH: go1.24.4, with Go toolchain auto-selecting go1.25.7 for the module
• Zellij installed via Scoop: C:\Users\abuma\scoop\shims\zellij.exe
• Zellij version: zellij 0.44.3

Repro

1. On Windows, install zellij 0.44.3 and make sure it is on PATH.
2. From frontend/, run npm run dev.
3. Let Electron auto-launch the daemon.
4. Try to open/spawn the orchestrator from the Electron UI.

Actual

Daemon starts cleanly:

time=2026-06-19T03:01:37.373+05:30 level=INFO msg="daemon listening" addr=127.0.0.1:3001 pid=24524

ao doctor passes the zellij check:

PASS zellij: C:\Users\abuma\scoop\shims\zellij.exe (version 0.44.3; require >= 0.44.3)

The first orchestrator spawn created an incomplete seed row, repeated reaper warnings, then failed after about 31s:

time=2026-06-19T03:01:47.371+05:30 level=WARN msg="reaper: session has no runtime handle metadata, skipping" session=reverbcode-13
...
time=2026-06-19T03:02:15.177+05:30 level=INFO msg="http request" id=Somewherelostt/VWPZORuGel-000007 method=POST path=/api/v1/orchestrators status=500 bytes=126 duration=31.2322219s remote=127.0.0.1:58251 error="spawn reverbcode-13: runtime: zellij runtime: list panes reverbcode-13: exit status 1: There is no active session!"

The frontend only surfaced:

Failed to spawn orchestrator: Error: Internal server error

Immediately after that, a second orchestrator spawn succeeded:

time=2026-06-19T03:02:18.119+05:30 level=INFO msg="http request" id=Somewherelostt/VWPZORuGel-000028 method=POST path=/api/v1/orchestrators status=201 bytes=65 duration=1.5745059s remote=127.0.0.1:58254

zellij ls then showed:

reverbcode-14 [Created 23s ago]

and ao session get reverbcode-14 --json showed the orchestrator as idle / not terminated.

Expected

• First orchestrator spawn on Windows with zellij 0.44.3 should either succeed or fail quickly with an actionable runtime error.
• The backend should not leave an incomplete seed session repeatedly logged by the reaper while runtime creation is still pending/failing.
• The frontend should surface the daemon error envelope/message instead of only Internal server error.
• Docs should match the current Go runtime support. Either Windows should genuinely support the documented runtime: process, or the Windows docs should state that the current rewrite requires Zellij until the process runtime lands.

Code/docs notes

Current backend wiring appears to construct Zellij unconditionally:

• backend/internal/daemon/daemon.go calls zellij.New(...)
• only runtime adapter present locally is backend/internal/adapters/runtime/zellij

Current frontend docs recommend process runtime for Windows:

• frontend/src/landing/content/docs/platforms.mdx says Windows should use runtime: process

The top-level README currently matches the implementation better and says the runtime is zellij and requires zellij on PATH.

[Vaibhaav-Tiwari]

picking it up

[somewherelostt]

sure