Retries and blocked work

If an agent fails or needs a correction, add a follow-up objective to the same mission. The next run inherits the earlier request, decisions, and delivery record.

When the agent is blocked on a decision, answer the mission question before restarting it. If the execution environment is unavailable, check ovld doctor and ovld runner status first.

How a run reaches an agent

Overlord decides what should run by writing a durable row to the execution request queue. A machine capable of running agents runs the terminal runner (ovld runner) to claim these rows and launch the agent locally. The backend never opens a shell on your machine — if no runner is running, the request stays queued until something on a capable host runs ovld runner start or ovld runner once, or a human copies the fallback launch command from the UI.

An execution request moves through explicit states:

Status	Meaning
`queued`	Waiting for a runner that matches the target machine.
`claimed`	Leased by a runner that is preparing to launch.
`launching`	The launch process started, but no agent has attached yet.
`launched`	An agent attached and created its session.
`failed`	A spawn error, or a stalled launch whose lease expired before any agent attached.

Stalled launches are not auto-retried

If a runner claims a request but the agent never attaches — the runner crashed, the launch errored, or the terminal was closed — the lease eventually expires. Overlord does not silently re-claim it (that produced an annoying relaunch loop). Instead it marks the request failed, clears it from the queue, and notifies you so you can relaunch manually with a Retry action.

At most one active request exists per objective, so clicking Run again on an objective that already has an active request re-queues that request rather than creating a duplicate.

Recover a stuck or failed run

Confirm a runner is available: ovld runner status.
Confirm the local setup is healthy: ovld doctor.
Answer any open mission question so the agent is no longer blocked.
Relaunch the objective from the UI, or from the terminal:
Terminal window
```
ovld launch <agent> --mission-id <mission-id>
```
If a queue row is stuck, clear it and re-run:
Terminal window
```
ovld runner clear <objective-id>
ovld runner once
```

Correcting delivered work

When a delivery needs another pass, do not restart from scratch. Add a follow-up objective to the same mission so the next agent inherits the prior objective history, shared context, and review record. Use a new mission only when the goal itself is unrelated.