From a694f246fb7a118e43f7b2f392cbb9b7125b298f Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001
From: George Lambert <marchon@gmail.com>
Date: Fri, 11 Sep 2026 13:37:08 -0400
Subject: [PATCH] Detach SSH-spawned workers so remote start returns instead of
 hanging

Remote node is launched in a bash -c background subshell. Live check
on NS1: spawn, /health, kill as marchon with ~/.ssh/id_ed25519.
---
 packages/verae-fleet/src/ssh.js | 4 +++-
 1 file changed, 3 insertions(+), 1 deletion(-)

diff --git a/packages/verae-fleet/src/ssh.js b/packages/verae-fleet/src/ssh.js
index 97adee6..e8a86c7 100644
--- a/packages/verae-fleet/src/ssh.js
+++ b/packages/verae-fleet/src/ssh.js
@@ -30,6 +30,7 @@ export function sshTarget(machine) {
 export function sshBaseArgs(machine) {
   const ident = expandHome(machine.identityFile || '');
   const args = [
+    '-n',
     '-o', 'BatchMode=yes',
     '-o', 'StrictHostKeyChecking=accept-new',
     '-o', 'IdentitiesOnly=yes',
@@ -126,7 +127,8 @@ export async function sshSpawnWorker(machine, { instance, env }) {
     .filter(([k]) => k.startsWith('FLEET_'))
     .map(([k, v]) => `${k}=${shellQuote(v)}`)
     .join(' ');
-  const cmd = `mkdir -p ${remoteDir}/data/${instance} && cd ${remoteDir} && ${fleetEnv} nohup node src/worker.js >data/${instance}/worker.log 2>&1 & echo $!`;
+  const inner = `node src/worker.js </dev/null >data/${instance}/worker.log 2>&1 & echo $!`;
+  const cmd = `mkdir -p ${remoteDir}/data/${instance} && cd ${remoteDir} && ${fleetEnv} bash -c ${shellQuote(inner)}`;
   const { stdout } = await sshExec(machine, cmd);
   const pid = Number(String(stdout).split('\n').pop());
   if (!Number.isFinite(pid)) throw new Error(`remote spawn produced no pid: ${stdout}`);