Summary

vigilante status is still reporting stale sessions and completed/failed sessions for work that should already be finalized and no longer watched. Sessions associated with issues that are already closed, and sessions whose lifecycle has otherwise finished cleanup/monitoring, should be cleared out of the active watch/status views and marked as closed so Vigilante stops continuing to watch them.

Problem

• vigilante status currently includes sessions in Stale sessions and Completed / failed even when those sessions correspond to work that should already be finalized.
• This makes the status output misleading because it suggests Vigilante is still tracking or watching items that should be out of the active lifecycle.
• It also inflates session counts and obscures the actual work that still needs operator attention.
• In practice, closed/finalized work should not remain in the same buckets as active stale sessions, paused sessions, or live completed/failed sessions.

Context

• Repository: aliengiraffe/vigilante
• The codebase already has cleanup/finalization paths for closed issues and closed pull requests, using fields such as CleanupCompletedAt, MonitoringStoppedAt, and cleanup sources like issue_closed and pull_request_closed.
• There is already an open request to introduce a distinct closed session status for issue-finalized work.
• The status output below shows the current incorrect behavior, where finalized or no-longer-relevant sessions are still listed in active status buckets:

vigilante status

Service
  state: running
  manager: systemd
  service: vigilante.service
  path: /home/zantez/.config/systemd/user/vigilante.service
  installed: yes
  running: yes

Sessions: 32 total

Stale sessions (10)
  Issue #106 in aliengiraffe/vigilante: blocked, PR #138 OPEN, stage pr_maintenance
  Issue #122 in aliengiraffe/vigilante: blocked, stage issue_execution
  Issue #58 in teros-dev/platform: blocked, PR #62 OPEN, stage pr_maintenance
  Issue #59 in teros-dev/platform: blocked, PR #63 OPEN, stage pr_maintenance
  Issue #68 in teros-dev/platform: blocked, PR #69 OPEN, stage pr_maintenance
  Issue #67 in teros-dev/platform: blocked, stage issue_execution
  Issue #70 in teros-dev/platform: blocked, stage issue_execution
  Issue #204 in aliengiraffe/vigilante: blocked, PR #205 OPEN, stage pr_maintenance
  Issue #266 in aliengiraffe/vigilante: blocked, stage issue_execution
  Issue #133 in teros-dev/platform: blocked, PR #134 OPEN, stage pr_maintenance

Completed / failed (22)
  Issue #163 in aliengiraffe/vigilante: success
  Issue #114 in teros-dev/platform: success, PR #116 MERGED
  Issue #224 in aliengiraffe/vigilante: success, PR #225 MERGED
  Issue #117 in teros-dev/platform: success, PR #118 OPEN
  Issue #119 in teros-dev/platform: success, PR #122 MERGED
  Issue #233 in aliengiraffe/vigilante: success, PR #235 MERGED
  Issue #239 in aliengiraffe/vigilante: success, PR #240 MERGED
  Issue #242 in aliengiraffe/vigilante: success, PR #243 MERGED
  Issue #241 in aliengiraffe/vigilante: success, PR #245 MERGED
  Issue #250 in aliengiraffe/vigilante: success, PR #253 MERGED
  Issue #251 in aliengiraffe/vigilante: success, PR #254 MERGED
  Issue #129 in teros-dev/platform: success, PR #130 MERGED
  Issue #256 in aliengiraffe/vigilante: success, PR #259 OPEN
  Issue #257 in aliengiraffe/vigilante: success, PR #261 OPEN
  Issue #255 in aliengiraffe/vigilante: success, PR #260 OPEN
  Issue #258 in aliengiraffe/vigilante: success, PR #265 OPEN
  Issue #262 in aliengiraffe/vigilante: success, PR #267 MERGED
  Issue #264 in aliengiraffe/vigilante: success, PR #268 MERGED
  Issue #263 in aliengiraffe/vigilante: success, PR #269 MERGED
  Issue #126 in teros-dev/platform: failed, PR #128 OPEN
  Issue #247 in aliengiraffe/vigilante: failed
  Issue #249 in aliengiraffe/vigilante: failed, PR #252 OPEN

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• The user expectation is that once an issue is actually closed, the session should move into a finalized closed state and stop being treated as an actively watched session.
• This is especially important for status output, because the operator should be able to trust that listed sessions still matter.

Desired Outcome

• Sessions for issues that are already closed are finalized automatically and marked as closed instead of remaining in stale/completed/failed buckets.
• Finalized sessions are excluded from the active operational status sections that imply continued monitoring or intervention.
• Vigilante stops continuing to watch issues and PRs whose relevant session lifecycle is already over.
• Status output reflects only the sessions that still require active watching, monitoring, maintenance, or attention.
• Non-goals:
• hiding legitimately open blocked/failed sessions that still require operator attention
• treating PR merge alone as the universal signal for issue finalization if the issue is still open
• deleting useful historical session data outright instead of modeling it correctly as finalized/closed

Implementation Notes

• Treat this as a bug in session finalization and status classification.
• Required behavior:
• when an issue is detected as closed and session finalization succeeds, the session should move into a finalized closed state
• finalized sessions should no longer appear in active Stale sessions or Completed / failed sections of vigilante status
• status counts should exclude or separately classify finalized/closed sessions so active operational views are not polluted by completed lifecycle entries
• open sessions with open PRs or open issues should continue to appear when they truly remain active, blocked, or failed
• Plausible implementation areas:
• session finalization paths in internal/app/app.go
• session status model in internal/state/state.go
• any status rendering/grouping code used by vigilante status
• selection/filtering logic that determines whether a session is still considered actively watched
• Required constraints:
• issue closure should remain the authoritative signal for marking an issue session closed
• a merged PR alone should not cause issue-level finalization if the issue remains open
• if cleanup/finalization fails, the session should not be silently hidden from status in a way that masks the failure
• Flexible details:
• whether finalized sessions disappear entirely from the default status output or move to a separate compact Closed / finalized summary, as long as they are clearly not treated as still-watched active sessions
• whether PR-only cleanup and issue-closure cleanup need distinct status semantics, as long as the operator-facing status view is accurate
• Tradeoffs to consider:
• some failed sessions may still be relevant if their issue remains open, so the filtering logic must distinguish finalized historical failures from open failures that still matter
• the status command should optimize for current operational truth, while preserving enough state for audits/debugging elsewhere

Acceptance Criteria

• When a session's GitHub issue is closed and finalization succeeds, the session is marked closed and no longer treated as actively watched.
• Finalized/closed sessions do not appear in the active Stale sessions section of vigilante status.
• Finalized/closed sessions do not appear in the active Completed / failed section of vigilante status.
• Sessions for issues that remain open continue to appear in status when they are legitimately running, blocked, stale, successful-but-still-open, or failed.
• Status counts reflect active sessions accurately and are not inflated by already-finalized closed work.
• If finalization/cleanup fails, the session remains visible in a way that surfaces the problem instead of incorrectly hiding it as closed.

Testing Expectations

• Add tests covering vigilante status output when sessions correspond to already-closed issues and verify they are excluded from active status buckets.
• Add tests showing that finalized sessions transition to closed after successful issue-closure finalization.
• Add tests ensuring merged PRs for still-open issues do not prematurely remove or close sessions.
• Add tests for failed open sessions vs failed finalized sessions so only the still-relevant failures remain in active status sections.
• Add regression coverage for session counts so finalized closed sessions do not inflate active totals.
• Add tests for cleanup/finalization failure paths to ensure those sessions remain visible for operator follow-up.

Operational / UX Considerations

• vigilante status should present current operational truth, not a mixture of current work and historical leftovers.
• Closed/finalized sessions may still be valuable historically, but they should not be shown as if Vigilante is still watching them.
• Operators should be able to trust that items listed under Stale sessions or Completed / failed still matter now.
• If historical visibility is still useful, keep it in a separate summary or another command instead of mixing it into active status sections.