Overview

This is a sibling PR to microsoft/amplifier-app-nanoclaw#7 — the same container log persistence feature, now proposed for the original nanoclaw repo.

Problem

Agent containers' stdout and stderr are currently discarded:

• stdout is dropped entirely on the floor (the container's stdout is opened but then ignored)
• stderr is piped into log.debug() which only displays if LOG_LEVEL=debug, and even then only goes to the host process' stdout/stderr (transient, not persisted)

Once a container is removed (via docker rm), all evidence is gone. This makes post-incident debugging impossible.

Solution

Per-instance log file persistence via inherited file descriptor: the container writes directly to the file at the kernel level after spawn() returns, so the host process is uninvolved. Files accumulate at:

logs/containers/<group>/<containerName>.log

containerName already includes Date.now(), so files are unique per spawn.

Configuration

New env var: NANOCLAW_CONTAINER_LOGS — default is DISABLED (no on-disk container logs). Opt in:

# Permanent (in .env):
echo "NANOCLAW_CONTAINER_LOGS=enabled" >> .env
# One-off:
NANOCLAW_CONTAINER_LOGS=enabled pnpm start

When disabled: spawns with stdio=['ignore','ignore','ignore'] — exactly the same behavior as before this change. Zero surprise for upgraders.

When enabled but file open fails: falls back to stdio=['ignore','ignore','ignore'] — persistence is best-effort and never blocks container spawn.

What changed

src/config.ts

• Added NANOCLAW_CONTAINER_LOGS to the envConfig array
• Exported CONTAINER_LOGS_ENABLED (true only if var is exactly "enabled")

src/container-runner.ts

• Imported CONTAINER_LOGS_ENABLED
• Before spawn: when enabled, open an append-mode log file at the calculated path and get its fd
• Spawn with stdio: ['ignore', logFd, logFd] (or all 'ignore' when disabled)
• Close fd in parent right after spawn — the child inherited it
• Removed the old container.stderr → log.debug handler and the stdout no-op handler

Inspection & cleanup

# Tail a live container:
tail -f logs/containers/<group>/<containerName>.log
# See what's accumulated:
ls -lh logs/containers/*/
# Clear all:
rm -rf logs/containers/
# Clear one agent's logs:
rm -rf logs/containers/<group>/
# Prune everything older than 7 days:
find logs/containers -name "*.log" -mtime +7 -delete

What's NOT included (and why)

• Log rotation: Operators manage retention manually. If manual pruning becomes tedious, that's the signal to add a sweep in host-sweep.ts.
• JSON envelope / structured format: The logs are plain text, one container per file. Machines can grep; humans can tail -f.
• Selective disabling per-agent: Feature is global on/off. If some agents need persistence and others don't, environment layering (different .env per checkout) is the tool.

Verification

• Typecheck: ✅ Clean
• Tests: ✅ 32/32 passing (container-runner.test, container-restart.test, host-sweep.test)
• ESLint: The one new no-catch-all warning at the log file open matches the pattern already used ×ばつ elsewhere in the file (intentional best-effort design).

This is a minimal, isolated change to the container spawning path. No new dependencies, no retention logic, no complexity.