Ghost Ships & Validation
A ghost ship is a prompt that reports success without producing a real change — the completion log gets an entry, but no meaningful file was committed. Catching these is essential, because a completion-log line on its own is not proof of work.
How Orbit flags them
Section titled “How Orbit flags them”After each prompt completes, an auto-validation pass inspects the commit diff and labels the result:
- Validated (Auto) — the change looks clean.
- Ghost Ship — the completion claims success but no real file changed.
- Wrong Files — the diff touched files unrelated to the prompt.
- Auto Skipped — validation didn’t apply.
The Notifications bell also surfaces stuck and ghost prompts directly.
Confirming a ship yourself
Section titled “Confirming a ship yourself”The completion log is an audit trail, not a guarantee. To confirm a real ship, check that the commit changed at least one non-log file — for example with git show <hash> --stat. A commit that only touched the completion log is a phantom ship, not a delivery.
Common causes
Section titled “Common causes”- A file lock, a permission prompt, or a wrong file path can leave a prompt with “Commit: none” and a Partial status.
- A very fast exit (a handful of seconds) with no output often points to a spawn-environment issue rather than a real run.
- Changes to a large, frequently-edited file can ghost-ship when a stale file lock is in play — clear locks before re-queuing.