Polecat allocator can assign infrastructure agent names (witness, refinery)
Status Fixed / completed
Maintainer reply None cached
Activity 2 comments · opened Jan 21, 2026 · closed Jan 21, 2026
Bug Description
The polecat allocator in Gas Town can assign names that conflict with infrastructure agents. In my case, gt sling allocated "witness" as a polecat name, which is confusing because witness is supposed to be an infrastructure agent that monitors polecat health.
Steps to Reproduce
- Run
gt sling <bead-id> <rig> --createmultiple times - Eventually the allocator assigns "witness" as a polecat name
- This creates a tmux session
gt-<rig>-witnessthat conflicts conceptually with the infrastructure witness
Expected Behavior
Polecat names should come from a pool that does not include infrastructure agent names:
- OK: alpha, bravo, charlie, delta, guzzle, nitro, rust, chrome, etc.
- NOT OK: witness, refinery, deacon, mayor
Actual Behavior
gt sling af-xyz my_rig --create
Target is rig 'my_rig', spawning fresh polecat...
Allocated polecat: witness # <-- This should not happen
Impact
- Confusing when monitoring sessions (tmux list-sessions)
- Could potentially cause conflicts if the real witness infrastructure tries to use the same session name
- Makes it harder to distinguish infrastructure agents from worker polecats
Suggested Fix
Add infrastructure agent names to a blocklist in the polecat name allocator, or use a separate namespace/prefix for polecats vs infrastructure.
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